From Ed Source 11/21/2025
Districts across California face a looming crisis as funding freezes, proposed cuts and a government shutdown jeopardize critical resources for millions of students and threaten to disrupt classrooms, staffing and services. Federal volatility leaves even well-designed state and district funding systems vulnerable, and leaders must act now to ensure every dollar counts, especially for the country’s most vulnerable students.
California is far from immune to federal turbulence, receiving about $8 billion annually in federal K-12 education funding. This summer, with more than $800 million at stake, state leaders joined legal challenges to safeguard funding for core services, including those for low-income students, special education, English learners, and foster and homeless youth.
But California has also built its own framework to direct resources where they are most needed, progress that matters even more when federal dollars are unstable. Through the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), state dollars flow to local education agencies in the form of base grants for all students, along with supplemental and concentration grants for specific student populations. This targeted approach ensures that significantly more funding follows higher-need students, and research links LCFF to improvements in test scores, graduation rates and college readiness.
Read more: https://edsource.org/2025/federal-funding-cuts-threaten-schools/745638