Writer Hails California Governor's Budget Plan

In an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times (1/25, Plank), David N. Plank, executive director of policy analysis for California Education, a partnership of Stanford University, UC Berkeley and USC, writes about the overabundance of funding requirements in California's school funding system, noting that in recent decades, "Sacramento has piled up layer upon layer of funding requirements in education, adding new regulations to the pile while leaving old ones in place. These 'categorical' programs send money to school districts to support specific activities, and each comes with its own set of rules and obligations." He writes that though they are well-intentioned, they create inefficiencies, and hails Gov. Jerry Brown's (D) budget proposal for doing away with them.