Budgets and Money

We had the Riverside Legislative Summit on Friday with our various legislators and the California Secretary of Education.  One of the more interesting statements that was made and reported in the Press Enterprise was regarding the relationship between money and performance.  It seems at some level we always go there and yet rarely get what I would consider to be the whole story.  In this case, I understand that basic notion presented -- however, it seems that we miss some of the relevant information that exists in our current times and circumstances.

I don't think anyone would contest that learning (when it has value) costs something (money).  So the question becomes how much money and what is the priority of those funds within the economy and spending patterns.  Obviously the corollary is that money alone does not equate to performance in education or, for that matter, anything else (probably the best example I can provide is the recent blog post I provided).  That issue of equity and levels of California funding was recently presented in what I would consider a fair manner by a Silicon Valley blogger, John Fensterwald.  To be clear, I am not asking for "Newark funding" -- just pointing out that money obviously has a connection and it needs to appropriate.

Additionally, it has long been understood that poverty never caused poor performance in learning.  However, it has long been understood that it has been associated (correlated) with educational performance.  I can point out that while I can take no credit for this, RUSD has shown a longitudinal overcoming of that poverty/learning correlation (as demonstrated below).  While levels of affluence have dropped in the community (as a function of free/reduced lunch counts), levels of learning (math and language arts) have improved.  While that is great and kudos to our teachers and all staff, I will be the first to say that we can do even better -- and we are!