The 2026-27 Budget: Re-Envisioning State Education Governance

Mar 18, 2026 - Considering Adding Legislative Appointees to the SBE. The Legislature could consider adding two legislative appointees to the SBE. These appointees could enable greater legislative oversight of the new governance system and ensure the SBE ’s policies are consistent with legislative intent.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5165

The 2026-27 Budget: Proposition 98 Guarantee and K-12 Spending Plan

Feb 4, 2026 - The proposal effectively shifts that cost from this year to future budgets —helping address the current budget problem on a one ‑time basis, but adding to the large budget deficits the state is projecting over the next several years.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5110

The 2026-27 Budget: K-12 Proposals

Feb 19, 2026 - Although the community schools model has been shown to have a variety of benefits for students, we have concerns about funding the model at such a large scale. The model can be challenging to implement and requires strong local support to be successful.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5131

The 2025-26 Budget: Transitional Kindergarten Multilingual Learner Screeners

Feb 26, 2025 - Federal and state law require districts to determine whether a student is an English learner that would benefit from additional language support. (Throughout this post, we use the term “districts ” to refer to school districts and charter schools.)
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4990

The 2025-26 Budget: California State University

Feb 25, 2025 - Though the number of students shifted from self‑ to state‑supported courses is smaller in 2024‑25 compared to 2023‑24 (745 FTE students shifted in summer 2024 compared to 4,705 FTE students shifted the previous summer), the effect is still not adding new students but adding new state costs from shifting students formerly in self‑supported courses into state‑supported ones.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4989

Assessing a Shift to Enrollment-Based School Funding

Jan 6, 2026 - If the Legislature is interested in providing funding increases that would disproportionally benefit LEAs with higher UPP levels, it could do so by making changes under the existing ADA ‑based model that provides higher rates for these LEAs.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5100

The 2025-26 Budget: Educator Workforce

Mar 7, 2025 - Individuals may also obtain additional credentials —such as the Mathematics Instructional Leadership Specialist Credential or Mathematics Instructional Added Authorization —that provide specific training related to improving instruction in math or literacy.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5012

The 2026-27 Budget: Fiscal Outlook for Schools and Community Colleges

Nov 19, 2025 - The fiscal benefit for school and community college programs would be similar to having a larger balance in the Proposition  98 Reserve —without the risk of facing premature reserve withdrawals or activating the local reserve cap.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5093

The 2025‑26 Budget: Fiscal Outlook for Schools and Community Colleges

Nov 20, 2024 - Outside of government and health care, the state has added no jobs over the past 18 months. Similarly, the number of Californians who are unemployed is 25  percent higher than during the strong labor markets of 2019 and 2022.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4940

The 2024-25 Budget: Proposition 98 and K-12 Education

Feb 15, 2024 - We find the proposed training funds to be premature since the approved list of screening tools has not been finalized and funds are being added to the block grant earlier than needed under the traditional claims ‑based process.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4839