These days, savvy California parents with school-age children, looking for a place to live in a school district with stable finances, might search in a “basic aid” school district.

"basic aid" school in Los Altos, CA

Those schools are usually thought to be found in high personal income communities, with high academic ratings and highly-qualified teachers.  A parent would be happy when the realtor discovered the perfect house.

Turns out nothing is perfect.  Every school unique.

If the realtor found a delightful dwelling in up-scale Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County, the family might be surprised that Beverly Hills Unified School District-fabulous student academic achievement; clean, up-to-date facilities; elite teacher corps-depends on “revenue limit” funds.

On the other hand, an oil man, buying a home in the Kern County Taft Union High School District, would find his children in a “basic aid” district, reaping the property taxes from the oil companies sitting on vast oil fields in the Central Valley.  The families with children attending TUHSD, however, have the lowest average personal income levels in the state. The schools are identified as Program Improvement (PI) under No Child Left Behind and student educational needs put a huge stress on the “basic aid” funds.  It relies heavily on state and federal categorical funds like Title I to support its programs.

How can it be so?

Settlement of the Serrano vs. Priest cases in 1972 and 1976 by the California Supreme Court, brought students under the equal opportunity protection of the law.  (Read Paradise Lost by Peter Schrag for the whole picture.)

The state then guaranteed each district a specific amount of funding per student per year, based on Average Daily Attendance (ADA).  Those “revenue limit” funds were based on property taxes raised in 1972-73.  For 35 years those monies have been adjusted by the state from other sources to equalize the revenue to each district.  Most of the approximately 1000 school districts in California rely on state “revenue limit” funds to set the yearly budget.

In 1978 Proposition 13 passed and property taxes became a huge thorn in the side for every school district.  It turns out some school districts actually had more property tax available within the school district boundary than would have been received from the “revenue limit” allocation.  Those districts are known as “basic aid” districts, about 100 or so in California this year.

Remember, all is not perfect.

Look at two adjoining “basic aid” elementary school districts in the affluent Silicon Valley where some of the most expensive property in the United States is found.  Los Altos School District’s Academic Performance Index (API) for 2008-09 was 959.  Can’t do much better, except for its few socio-economically disadvantaged students who barely made the grade on the NCLB Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) scale.

Meanwhile next door, “basic aid” only since July 2009, the Mountain View Whisman School District’s API rating was a respectable 822.  However, with a far more diverse student population, two of its schools are designated PI and must “turn around.”

Listening to Los Altos school board candidates, many questions came up about the antagonistic exchanges with the charter school that uses property in the district boundary.  No one brought up the need for schools, even high-performing ones, to devise plans to analyze test data to enrich the curriculum for high-achieving students as well as support low-performing students.

Reading the local newspapers, MVWSD is consumed with issues that can drain money from its  “basic aid” funds.  For example, property tax money doesn’t relate to student enrollment, so when one school loses and another bulges with students, arguments ensue.

What about the main problem for this “basic aid” district:  Program Improvement and “turn around?”  PI means professional development; teachers to work with low-performing students; a staff that communicates well; a plan to analyze testing data and account for the improvements all students must make; district administrators that realize the time and effort it will take.

School boards have difficulty focus on these tough issue, and such a “turn around” gives all districts a tight budget headache.