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We are still discussing how much CA values education and whether Measure C was really meant to increase teacher salaries within RCSD.
What Happened So Far
LCFF made sure California’s students can’t be “underfunded” anymore. And it did succeed.
“The LCFF system is widely recognized as rational, explainable, and, well, good policy.” [ED100.org]
Well, it did succeed at the funding part, but leaves spending to Local Control, which is always a problem. ED-Data confirms that as well. Initially, it told me that California districts spend a very low average of $6,500 per student for classroom teacher salaries, but we had a hard time confirming that number:
- Way 1 led to $6,050 (just salary).
- Way 2 led to $4,521 (just salary).
- Way 3 led to $6,500 (salary and benefits).
- Way 4 led to $6,600 (salary and benefits).
We needed to confirm those numbers by adding more research, and so we did:
- Way 5 gave us $5,328 (just salary in 2024).
- Way 6 gave us $3,113 (2005) or $5,300 (inflation-adjusted to 2025).
- Way 7 shows that education spending went from 62 percent in 2005 to 40 percent by 2025, which explains a lot.
To confirm all this, we tried to understand why two giants in their particular field (Stanford and PAUSD) agreed on the number $5,800:
- Way 8 shows how Stanford and PAUSD might have focused on salaries.
- Way 9 shows how California’s class size limits might have factored into these discussions.
What Stanford saw in PAUSD’s Books
The earlier-mentioned discussions between Stanford and PAUSD were most likely based on data from 2016, as it usually takes 1-2 years to collect and publish the data.
ED-Data.org for PAUSD 2016/2017 – core numbers for that year:
ADA: 11,806 students
Government Funds Total Expenditure: $283,409,566
Government Funds Total Expenditure / ADA: $24,006 per student
Classroom Cost (Teacher Salaries): $7,751 per student
Classroom Cost (Salaries + Benefits): $11,238 per student
PAUSD might have started negotiations at $24k, or at least at $11k per student, to mitigate the cost of a new student. Stanford’s army of lawyers and accountants must have looked at other numbers. And in the end, PAUSD and Stanford did agree on $5,800 as the full mitigation cost for classroom teachers.
What do RCSD’s numbers look like?
ED-Data.org for RCSD 2024/2025 – core numbers for that year:
ADA: 6,023 students
Government Funds Total Expenditure: $216,450,806
Government Funds Total Expenditure / ADA: $35,937 per student
Classroom Cost (Teacher Salaries): $6,674 per student
Classroom Cost (Salaries + Benefits): $9,677 per student
A few interesting tidbits are hiding behind these numbers. First of all, in theory, there should be closer to 11,000 students in this school district, but because of deliberate school segregation and purposely driving families away – a common practice in Basic Aid districts like RCSD – the enrolled number is a little over 7,000 with Charter Schools and only 6,000 without.
But RCSD gets the funding of a district that could cover 11,000 students. They can therefore spend $35,937 per student, compared to Palo Alto, which could “only” spend $24,006 in 2016.
And of that available spending, RCSD puts only $9,677 towards “education“, whereas PAUSD – with less spending power at that time – put $11,238 per student in that bucket. See how little the difference is between a “bad school district” and a “good school district,” and that funding has really little to do with any of it.
Way 10 – The RCSD Way
As established, in 2023, RCSD had $35,937 per student to spend, yet, according to its own reporting, only $6,609 went to teacher salaries.
The fact that RCSD spends right around the California average here suggests that, while there is a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) as part of LCFF, it’s not going to teachers.
Can we really trust RCSD’s numbers?
Way 11 – Don’t Trust, But Verify
Let’s verify. According to Redwood City’s own data, they had 302 teacher positions in 2024/2025 and, according to School Accountability Report Cards (SARCs), paid an average salary of $98,083.
RCSD Data Variables:
- RCSD teacher positions: 302 classroom teachers
- Average teacher salary: $98,083 per teacher
- ADA: 6,023 students
Step-by-Step Math:
X = (number of teachers x average teacher salary) / ADA
X = ($98,083 x 302) / 6,023 = $29,621,066 / 6,023 = $4,918 per student
In plain English:
ED-Data seems to indicate RCSD is spending ca. $6,500 on teacher salaries, but their data seems to contradict that number. The School Accountability Report Card wants to tell us that RCSD might have only spent ~$5,000 per student (salary only).
Let’s repeat this: RCSD apparently had some $36,000 to spend per student, but only $5,000 (14%) of that spending power went to classroom teachers’ salaries. If we include benefits, that number increases to $7,131 per student, or 20%, not exactly confidence boosters.
In a well-run and caring district, especially one with a huge amount of SPED and SED children, that number should exceed the 60% required by EDC 41372. And RCSD hardly reaches one-third of that.
Summary
RCSD’s number is basically around the state average, which is the way how we established the $6,500 (salary) number in the first place. And while I initially assumed that the ed-data number was the correct salary number for classroom teachers, three times the number has been proven wrong now:
California ED-Data: $6,316 => Verification: $4,500-$5,300
PAUSD ED-Data: $11,238 => Stanford said: $7,751
RCSD ED-Data: $6,609 => $4,918
ED-Data is using numbers provided by the school districts to cde.ca.gov that, frankly, sound quite low. But various means of verifying against locally available numbers show that school districts might be cheating quite a bit on what and how they report to the California Department of Education (CDE). It also shows us that the CDE and the County Board of Education (SMCOE) aren’t really doing the one job they have: making sure that LCFF funding is used properly and goes to students. They don’t even do the simplest job, which is verifying the numbers forwarded by superintendents against each other.
But most importantly, all these numbers show that there was no way Measure C funding would have gone to teachers. The district has so many structural budget issues that unless lawmakers start enforcing LCFF spending, districts like RCSD will keep treating all funding as strictly “discretionary” … like COLA going to administrators, but not to teachers.
Editor’s Note: The views and opinions expressed in all blog posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Redwood City Pulse or its staff.
