Richard Barrera vs Sonja Shaw produced a rare point of agreement this month: both said California should change school funding from daily attendance to enrollment. Barrera and Shaw made the case while trading barbs over school board performance, parental rights, Title IX and college readiness.
Barrera said moving away from attendance would give districts “a more predictable base for multiyear planning.” Shaw said, “Districts are expected to be ready every day whether kids show up or not.” The debate lands in California, one of only six states that still uses daily student attendance in the formula for base district funding.
California and Prop. 98
California adopted Prop. 98 in 1988 as a minimum guarantee model for schools and community colleges. The formula uses state revenue and property taxes, and education gets about 40 percent of that pie each year. The rest is divided among dozens of programs, including special education, art, music and community schools.
That structure is why a switch from attendance to enrollment is not just a bookkeeping change. Districts with falling enrollment could plan around a steadier count of students on paper, while the money still flows through Prop. 98’s larger system.
Carrie Hahnel on district funding
Carrie Hahnel, a partner at Bellwether, said the effect of such a switch is often overstated. “The reality is that whether we count students by enrollment or attendance there are fewer of them, so we need a broader solution,” she said.
She also said, “The question is: Is the juice worth the squeeze?” and added, “The funding gains are not going to be there in the way people think.” In her view, “The amount of money districts get from other sources like categorical grants would have to shrink. At the end of the day, the same amount of revenue would be distributed.”
Richard Barrera and Sonja Shaw
The funding agreement did not erase the rest of the race. Barrera accused Shaw of “taking a page right out of Donald Trump’s playbook” when she supported her district’s legal challenge of California’s 2024 law preventing districts from notifying parents when a student changes their pronouns at school.
The campaign is unfolding while the superintendent job has less power than before. The governor elected in November will appoint a commissioner to run the department of education, leaving the elected office with a narrower role even as both candidates argue over how California should pay districts.
Whether California lawmakers will actually change the formula from attendance to enrollment remains unanswered, but the candidates have already put a clear marker on the table. For districts facing declining enrollment, the next fight is not about the idea itself; it is about whether anyone in Sacramento will turn it into law.
