Dear Editor – Stats on Educational Funding Support Measure K

California has the world’s fifth-largest economy as well as the largest number of children living in poverty and highest percentage of English learners in the nation, yet the state of California spends less per pupil than the national average. (EdSource)

In response to the Great Recession, California created a new funding formula to restore school district spending power to pre-recession levels. But the level of funding our schools received in 2008 does not cover the actual growth in what it costs to operate a school in 2018— particularly since recent legislation mandates higher costs. Researchers at WestEd, an education consulting group, call it “a silent recession – which will likely force many [school] districts to make dramatic program adjustments and reductions or risk serious deficit spending, despite overall increases in K-12 funding provided by the state.” Measure K will help maintain the educational excellence our students deserve instead of making those dramatic cuts.

Measure K is a real estate tax of $189 per parcel per year (you’ll find it on page 9 of your ballot this November 6). To pass, it will need to get at least 2/3 of the vote.

As a community we need to work together to support and ensure a quality education for ALL of our students. Measure K will assist Culver City Unified in ensuring that every student in our schools has access to a dynamic, creative education. So when filling out your ballot, be sure to mark “yes” for Measure K. It’s for our kids.

Megan Kirkpatrick

The Actors' Gang

1 Comment

  1. I agree with Ms Kirkpatrick that the State of California should fund Education more. It’s easy to make misleading, broad statements about state funding that the reader probably cannot readily check. So here are the numbers in question.

    Let’s take the 2007-08 State funded ADA of 6386 students and multiply it times the Revenue Limit per ADA of $5896. That equals $37,651,856.
    Now let’s multiply it by the inflation rate of 1.32, which equals $49,700,450.
    Now let’s look at 2018-19’s LCFF per ADA which is now $8,163 and the Funded ADA is 6,756 students. Multiply the two, you come up with $55,149,228.
    Subtract the inflated 2007-08 figure from the current LCFF per ADA for 2018-19 figure and you come up with a difference of $5,448,778, even when accounting for inflation.
    So, we are not really being funded at 2007-08 levels, as suggested by MS Kirkpatrick.

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