By Nick Sestanovich

The superintendent of the Benicia Unified School District is asking school board trustees to support a resolution by the California School Boards Association (CSBA) requesting more money for state schools at Thursday’s BUSD Governing Board meeting.According to the resolution, “California has the sixth largest economy in the world and the largest Gross Domestic Product of any state in the nation,” however “the state falls in the nation’s bottom quintile on nearly every measure of public K-12 school funding and school staffing.”

The resolution notes that California ranks 45th nationally in the percentage of taxable income used on education, 41st in funding per pupil, 45th in pupil-teacher ratios and 48th in pupil-staff ratios.

“California’s investment in public schools is out of alignment with its wealth, its ambitions, its demographics and the demands of a 21st-century education,” the resolution states.The resolution cites a 2007 report titled “Getting Down to the Facts,” which posited that it would take an additional $17 billion annually to meet the state Board of Education’s achievement targets. It also cites a 2016 CSBA report, “California’s Challenge: Adequately Funding Education in the 21st Century,” which updated the 2007 report and came to the conclusion that, when adjusted for inflation, an additional annual $22 billion to $40 billion would be crucial to provide all public school students with access to high-quality education.“In order to prepare our students for participation in a democratic society and an increasingly competitive, technology-driven global economy, California must fund schools at a level sufficient to support student success,” the report reads.

Source: BUSD trustees to vote on resolution requesting more money for California public schools