Not from 90210? Beverly Hills says, ‘Out’
The decision by Beverly Hills Unified School District to kick out many non-resident students, starting this fall, portends trouble for the state’s new open-enrollment law, allowing students in the state’s worst performing schools to transfer to better schools in other districts. Many of the state’s wealthiest districts may end up deciding to steer clear of the program.
The Beverly Hills board voted earlier this year to end its policy of enrolling elementary and eighth grade students from other districts under special circumstances. Current high school students can continue to attend district schools.
In the past, it was advantageous for Beverly Hills and most districts to admit outside students, for they received state tuition payments for educating them. But in the coming year, Beverly Hills will shift from state-funded tuition payments to funding solely through property tax revenues. Because of continued slashes in state funding, property taxes now raise more money for schools in some communities with big commercial and office developments or expensive homes.
Beverly Hills has joined about 10 percent of districts – “basic aid districts” – that get their revenue from property taxes; some, like Palo Alto Unified, Los Altos, Rancho Santa Fe and Montecito school districts, raise several thousand dollars more per child than revenue limit districts get from the state. For basic aid districts, out-of-districts students become an expense, not a source of revenue.
For reasons of transportation or child care or to attend a school offering a unique program, parents have been able to request interdistrict transfers. Bevery Hills has notified 200 of the nearly 500 out-of-district students that they can’t return this year. Dozens are now appealing, mostly without success, to the Los Angeles County Office of Education.
Under the new open enrollment law, passed in January, families attending 1,000 schools – supposedly the lowest performing, though many aren’t, as I have noted – will be able to request district transfers. As of Jan. 1, school district must announce how many seats they’ll make available the following fall to outsiders. But the law clearly says that districts can cite an adverse financial impact, however they determine it, as a reason to not to accept other students. Sen. Gloria Romero, who sponsored open enrollment, had to make that concession to get the bill through.
Basic aid districts will get some money under open enrollment – 70 percent of the standard state tuition starting the second year – but they won’t break even.
Some school districts with declining enrollments will open up their doors to outside students. But most basic aid districts, providing the best education that money can buy, will do the math and, as Beverly Hills is doing now, will say no. Last year, Beverly Hills got $6,200 per child from the state.
If the Legislature wants to make open enrollment more equitable, it will have to strike a deal with basic aid districts to change the law.
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John, you need a thorough tutorial on school finance. You should be knowledgable enough to know that “basic aid status” for a school district only refers to the amount of revenue limit funding that a district receives; this funding is one of four (4) funding sources for schools. Beverly Hills Unified has barely edged into “basic aid” status, and its revenue limit funding of $6154/ADA in 2008-2009 was only 6.5% higher than the average revenue limit funding for unified districts in the state ($5,781/ADA). The total funding per student in Beverly Hills Unified was $11,114 in 2008-2009, and the funding source primarily responsible for the extra revenues in this district are the result of rents and leases (Object Code 8650). The total funding per student barely places Beverly Hills near the funding levels for the group of “affluent districts.” However, “affluent districts” generally enjoy revenue limit funding in excess of $8,000/ADA; while there are over 120 such districts in California, their total enrollment is only about 80,000 students. The whole issue of “school choice” is a bad idea created by politicians that have no clue about what is really going on. Parents already have choices and they use them; they vote with their feet. Check the data on student enrollments over time. As a final comment, Beverly Hills Unified should be commended for allowing as many interdistrict transfer students as they have over past years; most school districts have close to zero interdistrict transfers. That they no longer wish to serve so many IDT students is a local matter (and it may be necessary to maintain long term fiscal solvency).
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“several thousand dollars more per child”? The Los Altos school district just made it to basic aid status a couple of years ago, and certainly does not receive “several thousand dollars more per child” from the state than revenue limit districts.
Even if you include locally-raised funds, it’s still not true, not by a very large margin.
John, you’ve done poor research here. I doubt that even the most affluent school district in the state spends “several thousand dollars more per child” than the state revenue limit per-ADA funding level. Please cite your data sources if you’re going to make such claims.
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Jason: You can go to the state web site and look at the disproportionate ADA spending. Look under 2008-09 average daily attendance allocations. The statewide average is $8,736 per child; you can see basic aid districts, like Woodside, Saratoga and Palo Alto, raise substantially more, particularly in Silicon Valley, though they’re not designated as such in the table. And some raise additional money through parcel taxes not property taxes per se. I’ll acknowledge that many of these are small districts not located near big urban districts, so transporting students to these schools under open enrollment would be impractical for many families.
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