Ensuring California Schools are the Best in the Country

Every student deserves access to a quality education that provides the knowledge and skills needed for a successful career and fulfilling life. Unfortunately, many children are stuck in government-assigned schools that are not meeting their individual needs. Moreover, struggling parents have little recourse, as the government forces them to keep their children in failing schools, move to an unaffordable area, or pay twice for education through both taxes and tuition.

The lasting educational damage from Governor Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) authoritarian COVID-19 restrictions—in which California imposed some of the earliest and most draconian lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, and school closures—will surely take years to undo. The long periods of time that children spent absent from the classroom and stuck with an inferior remote learning experience, not to mention the onerous restrictions on personal liberties, have left an indelible mark on the youngest generation of Californians.

California’s educational woes are not due solely to COVID-19 school closures, however. Instead, that fateful episode aggravated and exposed structural deficiencies in California’s educational system, such as poor student standardized test scores, disparities between school districts along socioeconomic lines, and a contingent of poorly performing teachers.

While March 2020 will forever be remembered as the time public schools in America closed their doors, leaving millions of children and families without on-site school, the problem of closed schools has persisted in California (Enochs and Wenus, 2020). Even after the initial school closures due to the pandemic in 2020, union officials claiming to represent teachers throughout the state petitioned to maintain closures in Bay Area school districts into 2022 (Jimenez, 2022). Instead of contending with what contributed to this myriad of problems resulting from school closures, state leaders seem intent on doubling down on their policies. Teachers’ unions resisted in-person learning for long after the CDC deemed it safe for young children to return to class. Even though COVID-19 is in the past, the scars of learning loss persist (Enochs and Wenus, 2020).

In 2022, only 30 percent of fourth-grade students in California performed at or above proficient in reading, which is especially pronounced in the state’s large population of minority and low-income students. Black fourth-grade students in the state have a reading score 37 points lower than that of white students, and Hispanic students are scoring 29 points lower than white fourth-grade students. Low-income fourth-graders score 34 points lower than students from middle- and high-income families. These disparities are unacceptable and must be addressed (The Nation’s Report Card, n.d.).

Lack of money is not the core problem. Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds have provided a total of $23.4 billion to California school districts to help mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student learning (Fensterwald, J & Willis, D., 2023).This funding was distributed over three rounds, with ESSER III providing the largest share at $13.5 billion. As of November 2023, California school districts had spent $16.6 billion of the ESSER III funds, and the deadline to spend all ESSER funds is September 30, 2024. (U.S. Department of Education, 2023).

With such enormous sums spent on schooling, even during the pandemic years when students were not physically present in the classroom, it is evident that simply spending funds is not sufficient to produce strong student test scores. In fact, well before COVID-19, Proposition 98 passed in 1988 and established automatic increases in education spending in years with robust growth and increased student enrollment (Legislative Analyst’s Office, 2005). It also requires that at least 39 percent of the state budget be spent on K–12 education. Despite this significant and consistently rising spending, student scores in California have not improved. On the contrary, scores have declined across all grade levels and subject areas. Clearly, funding alone will not solve the complex challenges facing California schools.

California leaders’ continued efforts to impede parental school choice measures represent one major obstacle to progress. The state’s overly complicated approval process for charter schools, from curriculum vetting to funding allocation, significantly impedes the growth of this transformative alternative for underserved communities. In addition, California has obstructed the creation of education savings accounts that would make a wider range of educational options affordable for families. A recent example is a failed ballot measure in 2022 that would have allocated $14,000 for California students to use at private schools, charter schools, or even to fund homeschooling.

America First Policy Institute California believes that ZIP codes and backgrounds should not determine a child’s future. Instead, scaling up choice in education across the Nation is a promising path to strengthening accountability among education providers, reducing opportunity gaps for the state’s more vulnerable students, and improving the quality of education for all children.

Parental school choice allows families to take education dollars for their children to an approved education provider of their choice. Parents can choose among traditional public schools, public charter schools, private schools, virtual learning, and homeschooling. Parents can also access private school choice through tax credit scholarship programs, education savings accounts, and individual tax credits.

The America First Policy Institute, California chapter proposes expanding these school choice measures, which have proven successful and popular with parents, and pursuing other bold, new initiatives. With nearly 692,783 students enrolled in public charter schools as of 2022, the desire among families for alternatives is evident. California must reduce excessive barriers to certifying new charter schools and streamline the approval process (National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, 2023). With its extensive networks of religious schools, independent private schools, and homeschooling families, California can easily take advantage of its existing resources by equipping families with education savings accounts. Allowing parents to direct the more than $16,000 that California spends on each student to the institution of their choice that most suits their child’s needs would allow students to escape failing California schools much sooner than if they waited for new charter schools (Lafortune, 2023).

THE FACTS

• California has about 1,300 charter schools and seven all-charter districts, more than in any other state and a clear indication of a demand for more options in public education. Indeed, charter school students constitute 12 percent of the state’s K–12 student population.
• In California, student test scores in English and math continue to be below pre-pandemic levels in the wake of extended COVID-19-related school closures. In 2023, only 46.7 percent of students met or exceeded the state standard for English compared to 50.9% in 2019. Similarly, 34.6 percent of students met or exceeded the state standard for math compared to 39.7% in 2019.
• Even an American Civil Liberties Union survey about pandemic effects on the mental health of California students found that 45 percent reported depression, undoubtedly related to the impact of two years of lost in-person learning and the isolation it engendered.
• Students who were chronically absent reached 30% in 2021–22 (chronically absent means they missed at least 10 percent of the school year); only 14 percent were chronically absent in 2020-21, which was up from only 10 percent before the pandemic lockdowns. Among other issues, the onerous and unnecessarily drawn-out lockdowns broke the habit many students had for attendance.
• Private school enrollment rose from 530,928 students to 563,534 students between the 2020–21 school year and the 2022–23 school year, again showing a desire for alternatives to public schools.

(ACLU California Action, 2022; CDE, 2023; CSBA, 2021; EdSource. n.d; Tadayon, 2023)

IN CALIFORNIA, WE SUPPORT POLICIES AND GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR STATE LEADERS THAT:

• Prioritize Informed School Choice through Public Awareness:
  • Implement a comprehensive and targeted public awareness campaign to educate communities about the benefits of school choice initiatives, combating misperceptions through factual resources like the AFPI "Myths vs. Facts" document.
  • Emphasize the advantages of both Charter Schools, highlighting their innovative approaches and specialized curricula, and Education Savings Accounts (ESA’s), focusing on their ability to empower parents in tailoring educational experiences for their children. Provide resources of how other states were able to pass school choice and improve student outcomes and parent satisfaction with education systems.
• Optimize the Regulatory Landscape for Charter Schools:
  • Acknowledge the fragmentation within the current California Charter School authorizing process, encompassing various entities like local districts, county offices, and the state board.
  • Advocate for streamlining authorization procedures while maintaining rigorous academic standards. This could involve consolidating authority, establishing clear application deadlines and evaluation criteria, and implementing efficient appeals processes.
  • Invest in technical assistance and support for new and existing charter schools to navigate regulatory requirements and foster operational excellence.
• Empower Parents Through Educational Funding Systems:
  • Explore legislative options to implement ESA programs through scholarship programs or income-based eligibility criteria.
    • State model policy from AFPI is available here: Education Savings Accounts or Tax Credit Scholarships.
  • Promote transparency and accountability within ESA programs by establishing clear guidelines for fund usage, reporting requirements, and performance evaluations.