What Newsom's proposed budget means for education in California

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Public school districts were winners in Gov.Gavin Newsom’s revised budget proposal for next year, with boosted funding that includes $2.4 billion in ongoing increases for services to students with disabilities, money that education officials have said is badly needed as the number of children who need extra help grows.

Newsom, who overcame dyslexia as a child, called the increase for students with disabilities “the largest investment in special education in California’s history,” adding, “I don’t know that many other states can lay claim to this kind of investment, maybe in American history.”The statewide gain for school districts is a relief for Los Angeles Unified, which will likely be able to pencil out recent raises provided to employees to avert a strike, although long-term financial challenges remain for the state’s largest school system.The governor also proposed a 14-week paid pregnancy disability leave for TK-12 and community college employees starting or enlarging their families.“If you’re going to focus on recruitment and retention, you have to be pragmatic and address the needs of young women,” Newsom said.For California’s three public higher education systems, the picture was mostly status quo, with comparatively small levels of increased funding.

The fundamental driving factor behind the increased education spending is the state constitution, which, under current positive revenue projections, requires 40% of the state budget to go to public school districts and community colleges.Newsom proposed how to spend that money and highlighted his education record, which has included adding the new grade of transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds.

He also has, in some years, tried to shift or lend education dollars to other sectors of the budget.To advocates and education unions, such maneuvers amounted to improper or possibly illegal siphoning �...