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Lake County Board of Education calls on Legislature to fund public schools to national average
The board is asking that California school funding be raised to the national average by 2020 and to the average of the top 10 states by 2025.
California has the world’s sixth largest economy and the highest gross domestic production of any state, yet spends significantly less per pupil than most other states in America.
During the Lake County Board of Education’s March meeting, the board passed a full and fair funding resolution sponsored by the California School Boards Association.
The resolution asks the California Legislature to raise funding to a level that allows schools to prepare all students for success in college, career and civic life.
Currently, California ranks 42nd in per pupil funding; 45th in the percentage of revenue devoted to public schools; and last or nearly last in almost every measure of school staffing, including student-teacher ratio or the number of counselors, librarians or nurses per student.
Recent efforts to address the funding issue, like the Local Control Funding Formula, simply restored funding to the pre-recession levels of 2007, doing little to close the funding gap between California and other states.
In order to better serve Lake County and California students, rectify years of underinvestment in California public schools and build a brighter future for this state, the Lake County Office of Education is joining school districts and County Offices of Education across the state in calling for full and fair funding of California public schools.
For information on the Lake County Board of Education, please go to www.lakecoe.org . Board meetings are held at 1152 S. Main Street, Lakeport, on the third Wednesday of each month. Meetings begin at 1:30 p.m. Agendas are posted online and at the LCOE Main Office, 72 hours in advance of each meeting.
The full text of Resolution 1718-07 can be found at www.lakecoe.org/about/agendas_minutes.