Does it take massive amounts of money to improve the educational outcomes for Black children? If so, why? If not, why not? Keep in mind that some critics say LAUSD has plenty of money; they just waste it. What are your thoughts on this?

The amount of revenue generated from Average Daily Attendance is sufficient to improve the quality of education for Black children if it is spent on the child rather than on bureaucratic waste, mismanagement, and the purposeful redistribution of funds to suburban schools with higher teacher salaries.

The Los Angeles Unified School District generates close to $7 billion in revenues annually from Average Daily Attendance. This figure is based on the LAUSD spending of approximately $10,000 per pupil, and does not account for the billions generated from bond measures passed by the voters of Los Angeles. LAUSD ranks 48th in the nation in per pupil spending compared to the Washington, D.C school district, which spends approximately $14,000 per pupil. But it is the current funding formula of LAUSD that creates a huge disparity in the resources that are available to schools with predominately African American students compared to schools with predominately White students. 

LAUSD operates on a District Funding Formula in which revenues generated from the Average Daily Attendance from each school flows into the District General Fund. Schools that have more students, generally in the inner city, generate more revenue than schools in suburban communities. Schools that have more low-income students, also in the inner city, generate additional revenues from Title I federal funds. The district then reallocates funds back to the schools based on the school’s expenses, rather than based on the revenues actually generated by the school or on the student’s academic needs. 

This District Funding Formula creates a situation where inner city schools generate substantially more revenues for the district than suburban schools, but receive substantially less because their expenses are less. In other words, the revenue generated from inner city schools subsidizes the education in suburban schools.

Schools are funded based on their expenses, of which 90 percent of the expenses are teacher salaries and the remaining are facilities costs. Inner city schools have a disproportionate percentage of first- and second-year teachers, whose salaries average $40,000 per year, compared to suburban schools whose teacher salaries average twice as much, primarily because the most senior and better educated teachers are in suburban schools. The facilities cost in suburban schools is also considerably more than the costs of inner city schools. The result of this funding formula is that suburban schools can receive twice as much in funding than inner city schools, regardless of the revenues generated by the respective schools.

As a board member, I would propose a “Student Weighted Funding Formula” in which the revenues generated from Average Daily Attendance would follow each student to the school which they attend, and then allow the administration at the school site to determine how to distribute their resources. This funding formula would allow schools to pay teachers based on their effectiveness, acquire the necessary resources for their student’s academic and social needs, and improve facilities to create an environment that is conducive to academic achievement.