California ended 40 years of reliance on categorical funding for schools when Governor Jerry Brown signed the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) into law on July 1, 2013. LCFF intends to enhance services for high-needs students through new flexibility, targeted student funding, and local accountability. Two years into LCFF implementation, research in 18 districts and more than half of the state's County Offices of Education (COEs) uncovers both reasons for optimism and a few concerns. The LCFF represents an ambitious effort in the nation's largest state to fundamentally change the way education decisions are made, engage local stakeholders in these important decisions, and target additional resources to traditionally underserved students. Now is the time for mid-course corrections that will ensure the state is able to realize the "Grand Vision" that the LCFF is intended to be. Data Collection Methods are presented in the appendix. ["Two Years of California's Local Control Funding Formula: Time to Reaffirm the Grand Vision" was written with the assistance of Jarah Blum, Ashley Campbell, Camille Esch, Laila Fahimuddin, Michelle Hall, Jennifer O'Day, Katherine Ramage, Laura Stokes, and Laura Tobben.].

The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) was enacted by the California legislature in June 2013 and fundamentally changes the distribution of education dollars to districts. The legislation simplifies the formula for sending money to districts and now takes into account the higher costs of educating certain groups of students, specifically those from Low Income (LI) households, English Language Learners (ELL), and Foster Youth (FY). This document: (1) Proposes empirical questions that stem from key moving parts of the LCFF reform; (2) Digs deep into how eight districts frame the reform and the program models on which they will rely in Year 1 of implementation; and (3) Suggests a division of labor on monitoring implementation and illuminating promising practices. The following are appended: (1) How Eight Districts Framed and Implemented LCFF in the First Year; and (2) LAUSD's LCAP Goals by State Priority Area.

In 2013 California adopted a new funding formula that includes a significant reinvestment in public education after years of budget cuts. The new law allocates funds differently, directing more resources to students with higher needs and providing more local control and greater transparency. This revolutionary change presents California districts with the opportunity to fundamentally transform how they use resources. But with an influx of funds after years of budget cuts comes a temptation to simply reverse the cuts. This paper explores how districts can seize this moment to create systems that ensure all students reach new, higher standards. We argue that districts should: (1) Think strategically; (2) Think transformation; and (3) Think school leader empowerment. And we offer seven ideas for how districts can transform the way they use resources by connecting their people, time, and money to student and teacher needs.

The purpose of this qualitative, multi-site case study was to examine how the introduction of California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) contributed to a change in arts education at the district level at two Los Angeles County school districts that included arts education in their Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAP). In addition, this study sought to understand the factors that contributed to the inclusion of arts education in the districts' LCAP as well as understanding how arts education teachers experienced changes to their work. The findings of this study are based on document analysis, 150 arts education teacher questionnaire responses, and interviews with six district-level decision-makers and 24 arts education teachers. This study found that arts education teachers at both research sites, California Redwood School District and Golden Poppy School District, believed that LCFF implementation had positively impact arts education at the district level and that their respective districts had increased their support of arts education as a result of LCFF. Arts education teachers largely credited district leadership and LCFF for increased support in the form of additional arts education teachers and funding available for supplies and resources. However, the school-level findings varied greatly between the two sites. Arts education teachers at California Redwood perceived less of an impact on arts education programs at the school-level when compared to the district-level, whereas Golden Poppy arts education teachers maintained a positive perception of LCFF. In particular, arts education teachers within California Redwood expressed strong skepticism about the level of support for arts education among school site instructional leaders, whereas Golden Poppy teachers did not share this sentiment. The findings suggest a need to improve communication between district-level personnel and arts education teachers so that each district can clearly communicate LCFF goals to all stakeholders within each district and positively impact arts education access for their students.

On July 1, 2013, Gov. Jerry Brown signed California's landmark Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) into law. In addition to providing districts with greater control over how to spend funds, LCFF marked a tremendous opportunity for educational equity. The new funding law gave districts additional resources, called supplemental and concentration grants, to provide more services for English learners, foster youth, and low-income students. This brief follows up on the transparency issues raised in the 2014 report, "Building a More Equitable and Participatory School System in California: The Local Control Funding Formula's First Year." That report identified two key concerns about the transparency of the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), the planning and budgeting tool that LCFF mandated for school districts to communicate their strategies for improving student outcomes and performance. Findings show that, in their second year, LCAPs continue to lack budget transparency. As a result, the concerns raised in the 2014 report remain the same: without a comprehensive understanding of a district's spending, communities are unable to make a clear and full assessment of whether supplemental/concentration dollars are indeed reaching high-need students. This report recommends that state leaders and policymakers improve the LCAP by revising the template, sharing best practices, and clarifying unallowable uses of supplemental/concentration grants. A balance of local control and fiscal transparency can safeguard the transformational promise of LCFF of increased equity for children in California. The authors reviewed 2015-16 LCAPs across the same 40 school districts studied in the 2014 report. These districts ranged from Trinity Alps Unified, a small district with 660 students, to the state's largest district, Los Angeles Unified, with almost 650,000 students. Most districts had high percentages of the students targeted for additional funding. The review focused on two key questions: (1) To what extent are the 2015-16 LCAPs transparent?; and (2) To what extent do the 2015-16 LCAPs demonstrate that supplemental/concentration grants are being targeted to high-need students? Though this review focused primarily on questions of transparency, it also analyzed trends in the types of programs and services districts proposed in their LCAPs. The following are appended: (1) Districts Selected For LCAP Analysis; (2) What Programs and Services Do Districts Propose in Their LCAPs?; and (3) Model Budget Format. [This report was written with the assistance of Carrie Hahnel, Natalie Wheatfall, and Leni Wolf.].

Accountability and evaluation systems are pervasive throughout the U.S. K-12 education system. Former reform efforts, such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), used high stakes testing and punitive sanctions in combination with incentives to shape organizational practices according to desired outcomes. More recent developments in federal and state legislation, however, have given rise to a new type of accountability system that relies less on singular rankings or ratings, provides support rather than punishment, and extends local control to school districts. The changes occurring in California via the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) set the stage for this new era of accountability, which incorporates some elements from the previous system while also introducing new evaluation components. These shifts provide an opportunity to examine accountability under a new policy context. How do school districts respond to these changes? Through qualitative content analysis of accountability documents, known as Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs), I conduct two studies to better understand how school districts justify resource allocation to their varied institutional audiences and to investigate how school districts make sense of performance outcomes in narrative form. Ultimately, I claim that these documents represent artifacts of accountability, which reveal how organizations avoid, negotiate, or resolve tensions in public priorities and values.