July 8, 2016 Mike Kirst, President California State Board of Education 1430 N Street, Suite 5111 Sacramento, CA 95814 Via email only (sbe@cde.ca.gov) Re: SBE July 2016 Agenda Item #3: Update on the Proposed Revision of the LCAP Template Dear President Kirst: As members of the LCFF Equity Coalition, we represent a group of civil rights, advocacy, community, parent, and student organizations. We write in response to Agenda Item 3 on the July SBE agenda: the draft LCAP template prototype. We agree that changes to the LCAP template are sorely needed. We have collectively reviewed dozens of LCAPs, worked closely with community stakeholders in districts across the state, and collaborated with district staff as they engage in the LCAP development process. Based on these experiences, it is clear that many challenges in LCAP development and implementation stem from the template itself. We appreciate that SBE and CDE staff have taken a first concrete step towards a revised LCAP template and have solicited feedback from the equity community. However, we feel this draft prototype still falls short of the changes necessary to increase transparency and ensure equity. In particular, we are concerned that the prototype fails to address key challenges around stakeholder engagement and the use of LCFF dollars for high-need students. We look forward to working with SBE staff in the next two months to revise and develop tangible alternatives to this first prototype. I. Equity Coalition Vision for an Improved LCAP Template Our recommendations and responses to the prototype released by SBE staff are based on the following guiding principles, which we believe are critical to ensure more meaningful and effective use of the LCAP: 1. The LCAP must be a comprehensive planning tool that describes a district’s full educational program, and additionally how a district will support its high-need students; 2. The LCAP must show timely and clear information so that stakeholders can meaningfully engage in district planning and hold districts accountable; 3. The LCAP should require districts to clearly demonstrate how they are increasing and improving services for high-need students; 4. The LCAP should increase budget transparency so that stakeholders can see how dollars are being spent—including all dollars spent on the 8 state priority areas as well as all supplemental and concentration dollars; 1 5. The LCAP should promote better integration of the Annual Update with the 3-year plan and make it easy for stakeholder to see annual progress; 6. The state should integrate the evaluation rubrics with the LCAP and Annual Update; and, 7. The LCAP should provide clearer instructions and guiding questions regarding the obligations of LEAs as they develop the LCAP. These principles inform our comments below. II. The Draft LCAP Prototype Fails to Address the Lack of Transparency Around District Use of Base, Supplemental and Concentration Dollars We are also deeply concerned that the current LCAP prototype fails to address several challenges around fiscal transparency on the use of LCFF funds, especially supplemental and concentration dollars. From our review of dozens of LCAPs, we identified this as the single biggest problem with the LCAP template and guidance. A. Reflecting Base Funds and the Comprehensive District Program Many LCAPs we have reviewed focus on the sliver of their program supported by supplemental and concentration funds. Some reflected less than 10% of their general fund budget. Yet, the LCAP is supposed to operate as a “comprehensive planning tool”.1 It is not possible to fulfill this function if only a small portion of the LEA’s overall program is reflected in the LCAP. Moreover, when districts fail to articulate distinctly the base program delivered to all students, they, at best, create confusion and a lack of transparency as to which actions describe the core program and which are in addition to it for high need students. At worst, their failure opens the door for them to conflate the two. The prototype instructions retain the same language regarding reflecting the base instructional program as the current template which, while reasonable, has obviously proved inadequate. Additional instructions are needed to further clarify that all aspects of the district’s program that serve the 8 state priorities should be tied to one of the LCAP’s goals and that (as presently exists) all actions and related expenditures, including supplemental & concentration and base funds, that serve one or more of those goals should be described in LCAP.2 B. Use of Supplemental and Concentration Dollars for High-Need Students In order to fulfill the equity promise of LCFF, districts must show how they are using supplemental and concentration dollars to serve the high-need students who generated those funds. Yet, many LCAPs in years 1 and 2 failed to show when a proposed expenditure used supplemental and concentration dollars. Neither the current LCAP template nor the draft prototype require districts to explicitly identify or demarcate whether a budgeted expenditure for 1 LCAP Instructions at p.1 Note, reflecting nearly all of the base funds in LCAPs need not significantly lengthen them. Teacher salaries and benefits, for example, make up 70-80% of LEA expenditures by themselves and can be reflected in a few actions, such as to serve a Priority 1 teacher quality objective or a Priority 2 state standards implementation action. 2 2 a particular action uses supplemental and concentration dollars and, if so, in what amount. Without an explicit requirement that LEAs show which actions are supported by supplemental and concentration dollars, stakeholders will be unable to know how their districts are using these dollars to increase or improve services for high-need students. When a district LCAP fails to capture the amount of supplemental and concentration dollars being spent on an individual action, it is also impossible for stakeholders to calculate whether districts are underspending their overall amount of supplemental and concentration dollars. In years 1 and 2, for example, some districts appeared to significantly underspend those dollars compared to their initial planned expenditures, and then failed to carry over their obligation to use those dollars for high-need students in subsequent years.3 We recommend that SBE staff address these issues by including a section in the new template— either within the “Goals, Actions and Services” section or as a part of the “Demonstration of Increased or Improved Services” section—that requires districts to explicitly list the actions supported by supplemental and concentration dollars and the estimated amount of that spending. We also recommend that the Annual Update and Analysis section of the template include a “carryover box” that shows the total amount of supplemental and concentration grant funds that a district has not expended and plans to carry over into the subsequent year. Without these changes, it will be impossible for stakeholders to assess whether high-need students are benefitting from the supplemental and concentration dollars they generated for a district. C. Justifications of Districtwide and Schoolwide Uses of Supplemental and Concentration Dollars We are also deeply concerned that the current prototype does not address the failure of many districts to properly justify their use of supplemental and concentration funds in a districtwide or schoolwide manner. In years 1 and 2, some districts failed to provide any justification on how districtwide or schoolwide uses of supplemental and concentration dollars were principally directed towards high-need students, or how they were an effective or the most effective means for serving high-need pupil goals. Many other districts offered only vague, summary explanations rather than action-specific justifications. We strongly urge SBE staff to revise either the “Goals, Actions, and Services” or the “Demonstration of Increased or Improved Services for Unduplicated Pupils” section to explicitly require districts to provide appropriate justifications for each action that uses supplemental and concentration dollars in a districtwide or schoolwide manner. An omnibus, summary paragraph at the end of the LCAP template is simply not enough and will encourage districts to obscure their actual use of funds. The LCFF statute and regulations mandate that LEAs are “require[d]” to (Educ. Code § 42238.07(a)) and, in fact, “must” increase or improve services for unduplicated pupils proportionally “in the fiscal year” (5 CCR § 15496(a)). Not “propose to” or “try to”. Where an LEA does not meet its mandatory annual obligation to increase or improve services in proportion to the supplemental and concentration grants it accepted and utilized that year, the obligation does not disappear but must be met going forward. 3 3 III. The Draft LCAP Prototype Fails to Address Challenges Regarding Stakeholder Engagement We are concerned that the “Stakeholder Engagement” section currently proposed in the LCAP template prototype fails to address the challenges we’ve seen statewide around community engagement. “Local control” and “local accountability” depend on meaningful stakeholder engagement. Yet, we’ve seen significant challenges in how districts and community stakeholders engage with each other in the LCAP development and educational program planning process. The LCAP template is a critical tool for holding districts accountable on their statutory obligation to meaningfully engage stakeholders. When used correctly, the LCAP “Stakeholder Engagement” section should help districts and stakeholders assess whether and how stakeholder input actually impacted district planning. However, in Years 1 and 2 many LCAPs only included vague descriptions of the engagement process and most failed to describe the specific recommendations offered by stakeholders. Parents, students, and teachers were often unable to assess how their recommendations impacted a district’s planning process, if at all. The “Stakeholder Engagement” section currently proposed in the LCAP template prototype fails to address these problems by retaining nearly the same format as the prior template. The two boxes included in this section use general questions that are likely to result in the same vague narratives districts provided in prior years. We believe that with small, but critical formatting changes to this section of the LCAP template, districts will provide improved, specific explanations addressing which stakeholder groups they engaged, the content of input provided by each group, and the ultimate impact of that input on the district’s LCAP. We strongly recommend that SBE adopt an alternative and improved format that shows in a sideby-side column format: (1) the specific stakeholder group a district engaged, including all the statutorily required groups (e.g., Parent Advisory Committee); (2) when and how the district engaged with that group; (3) the specific recommendations offered by the group; and, (4) which of those recommendations were adopted and which were rejected. We believe that such an alternative format will allow stakeholders and districts to better track how stakeholder input affects the LCAP development process without creating significant additional work for district staff writing the LCAP. We look forward to the opportunity to work with SBE staff to mock-up a model “Stakeholder Engagement” section. IV. The Draft Prototype Should Align With the Evaluation Rubrics and Broader Accountability System Especially Around Equity We are also concerned that the draft prototype does not make any attempt to align the evaluation rubrics or broader accountability system with the LCAP. We recognize that the final pieces of the broader system and rubrics are still coming together. However, we believe than an effective accountability system requires each layer of accountability to work in tandem rather than as disconnected pieces. In other words, the LCAP template should explicitly connect the outcomes reported in the evaluation rubrics to a district’s goals, actions, and planned expenditures in the LCAP. 4 To this end, we strongly recommend that SBE adopt an LCAP template that aligns with the rubrics by including a section in the LCAP where a district that has been flagged as underperforming on any state priority, or that is consistently underperforming for any subgroup, must specify actions that it plans to take to address those issue areas. In other words, districts that are showing a need for improvement on outcomes in the rubrics should have a corresponding section in the LCAP template that requires a showing of how the district plans to improve on those outcomes and address disparities. In addition, districts should be required to disclose in the LCAP how they will support schools that have been identified as underperforming. V. Conclusion LCFF implementation is obviously a difficult and significant undertaking. While there have been promising practices in LCAP development in some districts, the challenges we highlight here cut to the core of whether LCFF and its promise of equity will succeed. It is critical that the new LCAP template adopted by SBE in September address these fundamental challenges around base, supplemental and concentration dollar transparency and stakeholder engagement. We must take advantage of this opportunity to learn from years 1 and 2 by making bolder revisions to the LCAP template. We hope that the Board will consider our comments and request changes on these critical issues as we all work together in the next two months to finalize an LCAP template that honors the foundational components of LCFF and the LCAP. Sincerely, Nayna Gupta Racial Justice Fellow/Staff Attorney ACLU of California John T. Affeldt Managing Attorney Public Advocates inc. Marvin Andrade Leadership Development Director Asian Americans Advancing Justice Los Angeles Kevine Boggess Director of Policy Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth Jan Gustafson Corea CEO The California Association for Bilingual Education (C.A.B.E.) 5 Oscar E. Cruz President and CEO Families In Schools Bryan Ha Director of Government Affairs United Ways of California Jesse Hahnel Executive Director National Center for Youth Law Taryn Ishida Executive Director Californians for Justice Brian Lee State Director Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California Cyndee Loryang Project Coordinator Fresno Center for New Americans Kenneth Magdaleno, Ed.D. Executive Director CLEAR (Center for Leadership, Equity and Research) Katy Nunez-Adler OCO Organizer PICO California Jennifer Peck Executive Director Partnership for Children & Youth Kimberly Thomas Rapp Executive Director Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Luis Santana Executive Director Reading and Beyond Araceli Simeón Project Director Parent Organization Network 6 Ryan J Smith Executive Director The Education Trust – West Shelly Spiegel-Coleman Executive Director Californians Together Samantha Tran Senior Managing Director, Education Policy Children Now David Valladolid President & CEO Parent Institute for Quality Education (PIQE) cc: Members, California State Board of Education Karen Stapf Walters, Executive Director, California State Board of Education Judy Cias, Chief Counsel, California State Board of Education David Sapp, Deputy Policy Director and Assistant Legal Counsel Nancy Brownell, Senior Fellow, Local Control and Accountability Michelle Magyar, Local Control Funding Formula Jeff Bell, Department of Finance Cathy McBride, Governor’s Office Jannelle Kubinec, Director of National, State and Special Projects, WestEd 7