RE: Question 1: Funding Model

We need to ask the larger questions about how we pay for education in our state.  What outcome do we want for our kids?  What do we need to get there?  That's what this adequacy model seeks to do.  I am a strong supporter of Virginia Strom-Martin's AB 2217, which is a first step toward getting toward adequate education funding.  It sets up a commission whose mission is to determine the cost of a quality education in California.  Once we know how much a quality education costs, the real task will be getting funding to that level.

I think that as a state we need to realize that if we hold education as a top priority, we need to figure out how to pay for a quality education.  Since Prop 13, the story of education funding has been trying to bridge the gap between what schools and students needed and what taxpayers wanted to pay.  We simply need more resources to educate all of the students in our schools.