Local Control Funding Formulas (LCFF) and Local Control Accountability Plans

(LCAP) are the current bedrocks for how school districts allocate resources, gain

funding from the state and local municipalities and decide upon pay packages for

educators and administrators. LCFF integrates parents into the educational decision-

making and planning processes while also allocating greater funding for children with

greater learning challenges (i.e. a corollary of ‘No Child Left Behind’), centering

schooling on the eight key factors determining student success and granting each

school district more flexibility and responsibility in terms of how it earmarks state funding

for a wide variety of outputs. LCAP is a critical component of the overarching LCFF. As

such, it outlines the general goals of a school district, its goals for students and how

such visions will be reached (while also accounting for the nuts and bolts of liaising with

teachers’ unions in order to achieve a balance between appropriate compensation for

educators and efficacious allocation of resources in interdisciplinary areas). LCFF and

LCAP put much responsibility in the hands of individual school districts in terms of how

they effectively collectively bargain with educators in order to make sure that educators

are fairly compensated and students are receiving the best educations possible.

Ultimately, LCFF and LCAP are successful innovations since they put greater power in

local school districts and their ability to address the idiosyncrasies of each school

district, school, classroom, educator and student. LCFF and LCAP allow teachers a

greater voice in terms of expressing their desires for commensurate pay raises, and

teachers’ unions are more compatible and harmonious with school districts since they

are able to communicate with each in easier terms since LCFF and LCAP delegate

such important decisions within a more localized and grassroots scope.

 Before LCFF and LCAP were introduced, collective bargaining between school

districts and teachers’ unions was often acrimonious, hostile and unproductive since the

state acted as a powerful arbiter between both parties (Knudson, 2014). Thus, decisions

as to teachers’ raises and other localized factors were slow-going and mired in the red

tape of bureaucracy. LCFF and LCAP helped to localize such decisions and bring

teachers’ unions and school districts closer together; ultimately doing away with the

acrimony and standoffishness present beforehand. For instance, the Los Angeles

Unified School District (LAUSD) has experienced very positive reactions to the

implementation of LCFF and LCAP. Parents report feeling more involved in the

educational administrative decision making processes of the school district and

teachers feel that their voices and compensatory needs are heard more clearly since

there is less administrative distance between the school district’s administrators and the

teachers’ unions (Knudson, 2014). As such, the state has taken a backseat in the

process and has allowed for localized, regional and individualized approaches to

subsume the old way of collective bargaining and interdisciplinary arbitration between

vested parties.

The process of advocating for teachers’ raises used to be drawn-out,

complicated and lugubrious in terms of the timeframe needed to engender a result one

way or another. Nowadays, LCFF and LCAP magnanimously expedite the process

since the state gives much greater power to each individual school district in terms of

how they interface and mediate with teachers’ unions. This has helped to effectively and

proverbially ‘deregulate’ the way in which teachers advocate and ask for raises from

school districts. Since school districts have greater budgetary discretions, teachers do
not have to wait for months upon months in order to know if their proposals for better

compensation packages have been approved or not. This ultimately leads to happier

teachers and smoother relations between school district administrators and teachers’

union officials.

School district decision-making in the age of LCFF and LCAP is more holarchic

in that superintendents mediate between the administrators, educators, parents,

students, teachers’ union representatives and other vested parties. Additionally, since

LCFF miniaturizes and localizes the dispensation and delegation of state-borne funding,

the superintendent acts as the arbiter and leader of the decision-making process though

without the authoritative tone that was prevalent when the state held sway over all

financial decision-making for all statewide school districts. Decision-making has also

become much more interdisciplinary as localized decision-making has taken

precedence over the authoritative top-down methodology of the state’s past leadership

role. As such, parents have a much greater say in terms of the scope of educational

curriculums, referendums for school district finance and proposed teacher raises. Thus,

teacher raises, which only used to be the purview of the teachers’ union, school district

and state policy actors has now been democratized to include the greater outlying

community (Ostash, 2017). As such, all financial decisions pertaining to school districts

are much more regionally-oriented and predicated on the views and stances of the

community where the school is located - instead of Sacramento. This is very beneficial

for all parties since, for instance, a school in El Centro would benefit much more from

local decision-making ventures rather than getting their marching orders from 700 miles

away in Sacramento.
 LCFF utilizes the eight main priorities of the learning environment. Priority one is

that the basic conditions of learning are met and metrics of teacher misassignment are

dictated and recorded related to the terms of equity, professional learning, resource

allocation and individual teacher feedback. Moreover, this step rates how well students

have access to standards-aligned instructive materials relating to the curriculum,

instructive spectrum and resource alignment. Finally, facilities are related in order to

ensure that they are of a high enough quotient related to culture and climate and that

resources are delegated efficiently and equitably. The second priority centers on state

standards and how the aggregate implementation of academic content and

performance metrics affects the state board in terms of assessment, curriculum, equity,

instruction and professional learning. Priority three relates to optimizing the engagement

of parental involvement in terms of eliciting parental feedback and parental participation

relating to academic culture and acclimatization, equity and corollaries of family and

community. Priority four tends to the topic of pupil achievement and resultant learning

outcomes and related externalities. This includes the rating of standardized tests,

academic performance indices, college and career-readiness metrics/schemata, English

as a Second Language (ESL) outcomes, Advanced Placement assessments and Early

Assessment Programs centering on the triplicity of curriculum, assessment and

instruction. Next, priority five relates to overall pupil engagement and the summation of

school attendance rates/tardiness deterrence, dropout rates, graduation rates and

ancillary absenteeism statistics. Priority six relates to the engagement of school climate

and the acclimatization process. This includes suspension, detention and expulsion

rates and rationale, and surveys/interviews/questionnaires of students, teachers and

parents pertaining to school safety and sociocultural ambience and connectedness of

the classroom environment. Priority seven’s purview is course access and the definitive

conditions of learning pertaining to Education Code 51210 in terms of pupil enrollment

in satisfactorily comprehensive curriculums that are equitable while also tying in family

and community imperatives and goals. Lastly, Priority eight measures other pupil

outcomes that also extend to Education Code 51220 (Fuller & Tobben, 2014).

The eight priorities of LCFF showcase how interdisciplinary facets of

accountability and systemic gradations of metrics/assessments bolster the qualitative

measurements of school districts while also a more holistic relationship with the

community. This same methodology also applies to how school districts are better able

to interrelate with teachers’ unions in order to optimize relations and avoid negative

externalities such as strikes over pay packages (Ostash, 2017). Due to the limitations of

state government interference in the new budgetary allocations of individual school

districts, superintendents are better able to work hand in hand, in amicable ways, with

union forepersons in order to ensure that positive relationships are forged and disasters

over finances can be averted. In the past, before LCFF, strikes routinely occurred

whenever school districts and teachers’ unions did not see eye-to-eye on appropriate

pay packages for educators. Strikes oftentimes led to teachers walking off the job,

furloughs and students missing any days of school over petty arguments over

compensatory packages. LCFF helps diminish these negative externalities by

increasing liaisons and wider channels of communication between school officials,

educators, parents, external policy actors, grassroots activists, etc (Fuller & Tobben,
2014). All in all, LCFF increases financial transparency and creates a public dialogue

that vastly benefits all parties involved.

Additionally, LCFF and LCAP increase the accountability of all administrators and

parties involved in the educational process. For instance, all actions under LCFF and

LCAP are transparent much like how corporations release comprehensive annual

financial reports in order to make all their actions known and open for scrutiny and

discussion. This ensures that all dealings, arbitration and mediation will be civil, timely,

cordial and devoid of the mudslinging and ad hominem attacks that were prevalent

before LCFF and LCAP. This also means that the state and local school districts don’t

have to spend as much money on strikebreakers and other ancillary efforts to induce

teachers’ unions and school districts to reconcile after arguments over finances.

Moreover, it is also evident that educators must make cogent and well-thought out

arguments to the outlying community and other vested parties in order to have their

concerns taken seriously. Thus, teachers can’t just ask for raises without substantiating

why they want raises and compensatory bonuses. This increases accountability by

forcing the teachers’ unions to resort to facts and logic instead of appeals to emotion

when defending their stances on teachers’ issues. This also ensures that teachers’

unions won’t use strikes to strongarm the school district into raising wages (Ostash,

2017). With the transparency that comes with LCFF and LCAP, teachers’ unions would

not at all benefit from the negative publicity that would ensue if they were to push the

issue and hound the school district for augmented wages if such desires were not

rooted in substantiated claims.

 The transparency of LCFF and LCAP also ensure that teachers’ wages are

rooted to metrics that are tied to academic performance of students within the

classroom. Thus, LCFF and LCAP infer that teachers are more likely to earn higher

wages and benefits if they deliver prime results in the classroom. Thus, LCFF and

LCAP infuse a spirit of meritocracy into how teachers are assessed in terms of

performance reviews and compensatory packages. Likewise, educator compensation

packages are also pegged to how well educators uphold the eight principal tenets of

LCFF and LCAP accountability (Knudson, 2014). This ensures that educators are truly

paid what they are worth.

LCFF and LCAP also lessen teachers’ union involvement in that, since fiduciary

responsibilities are localized with the school district, the teachers’ union rarely has to

step in and advocate on behalf of teachers for fair compensation. As a result, school

districts can ensure that decision-making is more unanimous and singular in scope

since outside parties rarely need to step into the fray as pressures and tensions do not

run as high as they did before LCFF and LCAP (Ostash, 2017). Since teachers’ union

involvement is often the last method utilized before strikes and walk-offs occur, it can

safely be said that LCFF and LCAP deter strikes and keep school functions running

smoothly so that compensation negotiations can occur without disrupting regularly

scheduled schooling.

As an economic enterprise, LCFF and LCAP optimize the way in which

resources are apportioned. Before LCFF and LCAP, the financial realities of schooling

were seen as mutually exclusive from the educational and administrative process.

However, LCFF and LCAP introduced a holistic plan for integrating the fiduciary
responsibilities of the school district without alienating any of the parties involved. This

way, teacher raises and all other financial concerns are integrated into the day-to-day

fabric of educational processes. Whereas, teacher raises in particular were viewed as a

taboo and selfish reality of the education system, LCFF and LCAP view them as

necessary realities that must be accounted for in order to smooth over the educational

process and ensure that a fair balance is struck between fair compensation for teachers

and administrators and optimum academic services are provided for students at all

times.

Works Cited
Fuller, B., & Tobben, L. (2014). Local Control Funding Formula in California: How to
Monitor Progress and Learn from a Grand Experiment. Chief Justice Earl Warren
Institute on Law and Social Policy.
Knudson, J. (2014). Implementing LCFF: Building Capacity to Realize the Promises of
California's New Funding System. Policy and Practice Brief. California
Collaborative on District Reform.
Ostash, D. A. (2017). Best Practices of California School Districts Implementing LCFF
and LCAP through the Collective Bargaining Agreement: A Multiple Case Study
(Doctoral dissertation, Azusa Pacific University).