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Does the root of all educational evil lie with school districts?
In a previous blog post, I argued that almost all problems within Bay Area school districts lead back to “Local Control.” Neither the Silicon Valley Community Foundation nor The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) found that small districts have any educational advantages. LAO recommended:
“eliminate the substantial fiscal advantages that enable districts to remain small – particularly since we find little proof that being small leads to better student outcomes.“
Democracy Journal recognized school districts as the root of school segregation and educational inequality in California.
“At the root of educational inequality: the rich and poor districts that keep education segregated. For the better part of the last century, activists and policymakers have been trying to build a more just and effective system of public schooling. … they have also fallen far short of their own ambitions. American education today remains segregated and unequal, with millions of students, disproportionately poor and of color, failing to learn what they need to know.”
Unfortunately, politicians have not pushed for the redistricting of school districts. They instead point to local ‘checks and balances.’ And if all checks and balances are in place and working perfectly, education can blossom.
Is Education blossoming in Redwood City?
Since we have two school districts within Redwood City, there are two answers:
Education is fine within Redwood Shores Belmont School District (BRSSD). The percentage of students succeeding in math and ELA hovers around a solid 80%.
Education, however, does not blossom within the Redwood City School District (RCSD). This is the richer of the two districts, and yet the State’s data show a success rate hovering around 40%, and many kids are one, two, or even three years behind their grade levels. The ‘Achievement Gap’ seems to be widening too. Despite having more per-student funding than Redwood Shores, RCSD has not been able to translate that into success. It seems the money has not been put to good educational use.
Instead of narrowing the ‘Achievement Gap‘ with the extra LCFF money they get, RCSD leadership and apologists of the school district system are employing all kinds of tricks to hide it. Their PR team will point to the very high number of low-income students (SED), English Learners (EL) and children requiring Special Ed (SPED) living in North Fair Oaks and along El Camino Real. They say that to educate these students, the district has to hire more teachers and invest in smaller classrooms. Therefore, the stress on the education budget is higher than that of a district with fewer SED, EL, and SPED students like Belmont-Redwood Shores.
These might all be valid points, but the main question going through my mind is: ‘Why do public school districts in America even have a “Director of Communication” and “PR teams”?‘ This must lead to the follow-up question: “What is the PR team supposed to be hiding?”
Does the RCSD’s performance relate to its high enrollment of SED and SPED students?
Failing school districts in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Oakland, or Redwood City all have huge PR teams that like to blame their educational failure on a higher percentage of low-income students. The next sentence is usually about how sorry they are to lack the finances to help these children. RCSD just did it again last week.
But is that really true? RCSD gets more per-student funding through California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). Their education budget is, therefore, higher than that of BRSSD. To find out more about this topic, California gives parents some tools. One is called the School Accountability Report Card (SARC).
A quick comparison of our two school districts reveals some astonishing numbers:
| Redwood Shores (BRSSD) | Redwood City (RCSD) | |
| Student Enrollment [CA-EPP ADA] | ca. 3,800 | ca. 5,800 (this should be >12,000) |
| Per-Student Funding [CA-EPP] | ca. $14,000 | ca. $21,000 |
| Percentage of students succeeding in Math and ELA [CAASPP] | ELA: 81% Math: 77% | ELA: 46% Math: 37% |
| Budget spent on Educators [§41372 requires 60%] | 43% (2012) 39% (2022) | 39% (2012) 28% (2022) |
| Budget spent on Administrators compared to peers | 133% (2012) 114% (2022) | 126% (2012) 159% (2022) |
| Teacher Salary Budget compared to State | 100% (2012) 119% (2022) | 93% (2012) 84% (2022) |
| Average Teacher Salaries compared to peers | 96,000 (+9%) | 87,000 (0%) |
| Campuses | 7 | 16 |
| District Office | dinky, little building close to 2 schools | Expensive downtown location, far removed from schools and education |
Summary:
With just a few Key Performance Indicators and data points, we can easily dispel a few myths:
- RCSD is in the top 30% of all CA districts regarding per-student funding.
- RCSD is not poor, not underfunded and not ‘underserved’
- RCSD, however, is ‘underserving’ its students.
- A district with many SED, EL and SPED students should be exceeding its education budget, and RCSD’s spending on education is way down.
- When RCSD received more funding, the district did not invest it in teachers and education. That budget stands at just 84% compared to its peers.
- When BRSSD received more funding, it went to teachers and education, now at 119% compared to its peers.
- While BRSDD adjusts teacher salaries to the high cost of the Bay Area, RCSD does not.
- The budget for administrators at BRSSD has been lowered over the years, and processes have been streamlined.
- Whenever RSCD does receive more funding, leadership increases complexity and the administrator’s budget.
- RCSD’s structure and processes are extremely complicated and unclear to most parents.
- RCSD’s administrator budget is now at 160% compared to its peers.
- RCSD has not lowered classroom sizes for SED, EL, SPED students to foster their education.
- … in fact, RCSD classroom sizes in low-income schools with many ELs are the highest within the district.
- This means the adjusted LCFF money for low-income students does not reach the intended purpose.
- Between 2012 and 2022, the budget for teacher salaries went from a low 39% to a very low 28%.
The myth that RCSD is doing so badly because it’s an “underserved school district” full of “underserved students” whose education is so expensive … cannot be confirmed. RCSD is one of the wealthiest school districts in California and, therefore, in America. California’s Education Code §41372 states that 60% of the general budget should be spent in classrooms. A district with too many kids requiring extra attention would have to exceed 60%. However, with only 28% of the budget spent on teachers and education, RCSD is far, very far away from what California and LCFF money would require.
Over the last 30 years, whenever RCSD received more money from state, federal, and local sources, the money never made it into the education side of the budget. The administrative costs kept growing, as did the number of empty and unused school buildings. Even empty buildings require maintenance expenses and a growing facilities department to take care of them. While BRSSD seems to finance and value education and educators and has succeeded in doing so, an education budget of 28% should tell parents that RCSD isn’t even trying.
Post.Scriptum.
Nobody who wants to do good could be that bad.
RCSD seems to be spending more money on hiding the ‘Achievement Gap’ rather than closing it. In a future blog post, we will explore how intentional school segregation plays into this bleak picture. And there is always one more thing with RCSD. Who would still have a school named after Henry Ford, especially after PAUSD took away schools from David Starr Jordan and Lewis Terman a few years back?
More Information
- LAO: How Small is To Small
- No More School Districts
- SVCF: How Did We End Up with 54 School Districts …
- RCSD: SARCs
- RCSD: CAASPP
- BRSSD: SARCs
- BRSSD CAASPP
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.
Great analysis of funding vs. results, and surprising conclusions. Consolidation of districts seems like a practical way to reduce overhead and increase consistency in performance and accountability.
This article fails to note that RCSD has only had higher funding since 2020 or 2021. It was previously lower funded. As someone who has worked at one of the lowest SES school in the district, this article also fails to realize the enormous challenges facing some of the families. There were high levels of trauma in some communities, unaddressed mental health issues in the families, stress from insecure housing, sometimes repeat moves resulted in children missing large portions of school, and often children were busy being contributing members of the family and neighborhood from a young age (caring for younger or older family members, cooking, helping their parents with their work after school). In contrast, kids from wealthier communities are more likely to be able to focus on learning and don’t become contributing members of their family or community until many, many, many years later. RCSD likely needs a PR team because misguided sites like Great Schools, which perpetuate segregation with algorithms that don’t make sense, may be driving wealthier families from the district. This poorly researched article is also evidence of why RCSD would need a PR team.
Thanks Poppy,
you are saying all the right things about how low-income children would need additional services and smaller classrooms. And if RCSD really cared, then the Trustees would overspend on the education and class room side of the budget. However, California clearly tells us that RCSD only spends 28% of it’s budget on these most important aspects and 72% on everything else. Best practice would be 60/40 instead RCSD is doing 28/72.
All will become clearer in a future post when we dive into the social and monetary cost that RCSD’s “School of Choice” and School Segregation system have created.
Keep in mind comparing administrator budget between districts is not apples to apples. Some districts, like RCSD, put certain professions in the administrative category while others have the same roles in the teacher category. Think counselors, psychologists, inclusion specialists, behavior specialists, SLPs, OTs, teacher trainers, etc.
I do have an open Public Record Request with RCSD that should shed some light on exactly this topic. But at this point in time RCSD is in violation of CA Public Records Acts because the Superintendent has not forwarded that data.
It sounds like you are acknowledging not having enough information to support some of the conclusions you’ve made above. Some may end up being correct in the end, but at this point, the evidence is not there. Some additional points to research: does classifying specialists with more required education that would place them higher on the teacher salary schedule may cause or at least contribute to the gap between teacher pay between districts? Are there significant differences between the ELL populations between the two school districts? Based on my experience working in one district and living in the other, one district has a high population of ELL students whose parents don’t speak English and who live in communities where they may not hear much English outside of the six hours they are in school. In the other district, do many of the ELL students may come from highly educated immigrant families where the parents already speak English and who have the means to immerse their children in activities where they continue to practice English outside of school?
The district has to report correct data to the County’s Office of Education (SMCOE) and to California. The district also employs a Chief Business Officer and several lawyers, we should hope they take their jobs seriously. We have to assume that data is solid otherwise the district would commit fraud.
A district with a high number of UPC (Unduplicated Pupil Count) should invest more than just 28% in Education. Your assumption was that RCSD might have miscategorized certain teaching positions – like assistants, SPED teachers, counselors, reading instructors, etc. – as administrators. That a district with so many problems would do that sounds unlikely, but to give them the benefit of the doubt, I asked for confirmation via a CPRA.
But we have another source. Every year the district needs to send a form to the County Superintendent of Schools in regards to Education Code section §41372 – “Application for Exemption from the Required Expenditures for Classroom Teachers’ Salaries”. In that form the district is admitting to Nancy Magee that they are overspending on administrators and underspending on educators.
The two different sources (plus several more) prove that RCSD is underspending on these low-income kids. The two sources however seem to be off or are using different categorizations.
But why would RCSD try to undersell their education budget and oversell their administrator budget? It is more likely that RCSD is spending even less on education than we think and that is why they don’t want to grant my CPRA request. If they have nothing to hide …
Thanks for this piece !
“ Your assumption was that RCSD might have miscategorized certain teaching positions – like assistants, SPED teachers, counselors, reading instructors, etc. – as administrators. That a district with so many problems would do that sounds unlikely”
It’s not a miscategorization. It’s an HR, payroll, and sometimes a staff decision with plusses and drawbacks. As an admin, they can pay you more than the teacher’s salary, but you lose the protections of a teacher’s union. Some districts do this in order to pay professions they have a shortage of more. Also, I never said assistants were categorized as admin. This point alone is why its problematic when people who haven’t worked in education write critical pieces like this, without having nearly enough info.
Note that when I said OTs, SLPs, Psychologists, mental health counselors, etc (positions that are not teachers and have higher educational and training requirements and who manage legal issues and legal paperwork), you changed that into “ assistants, SPED teachers, counselors, reading instructors, etc.”