The Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) is a cornerstone of California’s public education system. School districts use the LCAP to document their three-year plans for public comment and annual review. This lesson explains how the LCAP came to be and why it matters.

What is Subsidiarity?

In 2013, a year of budget cuts, California massively decentralized accountability for public education. The change took place under the leadership of Governor Jerry Brown. Citing a philosophy he called “subsidiarity,”Brown argued that “a central authority should only perform those tasks which cannot be performed at a more immediate or local level.” In the context of education, this philosophy suggests that control of local schools ought to rest with local communities.

A less philosophical explanation for the change also works:

"Subsidiarity"
Your budget shrunk. Here's what's left.
Use it as you think best!

Decentralizing power was an important reversal. In 1978, the passage of Proposition 13 centralized budgetary power in Sacramento. Centralizing power wasn't really the point of the initiative; it just worked out that way. Legislators, doing their best for their constituents, used their power to direct education money toward specific programs. Over time, these categorical programs became increasingly important, and education resources flowed from Sacramento with growing limitations and program requirements. Districts learned to comply with these program requirements in order to get the funding they needed. This arrangement, though irritating and often inefficient, was sustainable so long as tax revenues continued to flow and grow. They didn't.

A good outcome from bad times

When the Great Recession crimped the budget in 2008, something had to give. Governor Brown and the legislature used the moment to substantially dismantle the categorical funding system that had directed state funds toward specific purposes. Because there was not enough money to run schools without dipping into restricted categorical funding, the legislature made the remaining funding “flexible,” essentially saying: “Use it for whatever you think best” rather than specifying a purpose for it.

Districts received a new level of control over their (smaller) budgets, and the legislators avoided the perhaps-impossible political task of choosing which programs to prune. That unwelcome task was left to local control. The new system was dubbed (drumroll please!) the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF).

Is Accountability Possible With Local Control?

LCFF placed a new degree of power in the hands of California's local districts and school boards. Would their decisions tend to benefit the students in most need of help, or the students whose parents had the strongest voice? Or, perhaps, neither? As discussed in Lesson 7.1, constitutional responsibility for education falls to the state, not to districts. Subsidiarity is a governing principle, not a constitutional promise.

A bunch of things changed at more or less the same time:

• The standards. California's academic standards changed with the shift to Common Core standards.
• The tests. Tests had to change to reflect the new standards.
• The scoring system. The old system was replaced with the California School Dashboard.
• Reporting of results. The Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) was developed to provide public transparency about district plans and results.

There are two general options for holding an organization accountable. It can be held accountable for inputs (what it spends and how) or outcomes (what it accomplishes). California has tried to use both. How would districts be held accountable?

State Tests and State Accountability

Until 2013, the annual state tests mandated by federal law served as the primary outcome-based accountability measure for schools and districts. For all their flaws, these tests at least provided a modicum of transparency. Virtually every student took them. Wherever groups of students bombed the tests, the problem stood out at every level, from the student, to the parent, to the school, to the district, to Sacramento, to Washington. California used the scores to create a measure for accountability under state law, the Academic Performance Index (API). The API was also used as evidence of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

In this system, the state and federal government were the designated scolds. District, school, and teacher leaders were left to interpret and explain the results, which were sometimes contradictory.

Local Control Requires Local Accountability

The local control funding system turned the accountability system on its head: Don’t look at Washington or Sacramento to make schools succeed. Don't expect Washington or Sacramento to scold or praise your teachers and students. Under the principle of subsidiarity, local communities are expected to make choices to safeguard the vulnerable and achieve good results for all kids.

This theory deeply worries many civil rights advocates, who perceive a great risk in counting on communities to hold their schools and districts accountable for equitable use of funds, especially with poor transparency. In practice, they argue, subsidiarity is vulnerable to lax or absent oversight. In 2019, a sharply-worded report from the California State Auditor substantiated these concerns.

How Does the LCAP Work?

Beginning in 2014, each district, county office of education, and charter school (each LEA) became responsible for preparing a Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP). The plan describes the overall vision for students, annual goals, and specific actions that will be taken to achieve the vision and goals.

The LCAP is developed and reviewed each year in coordination with the district’s annual budget cycle. Each year the state evolves its LCAP Template, which districts use as a starting point. (They may design their own documents if they meet the requirements.)

The California State PTA’s Seasons of the LCAP describes ways to use the LCAP process to engage community members throughout the year.

The district-level LCAP, in combination with the school-level School Plan for Student Achievement (SPSA), can serve as an important tool to drive action-based conversations about local investment decisions.

Or, unread, it can just be paperwork.

LCAPs must address eight areas that have been identified as state priorities. In particular, the plans have to call out details related to the three categories of students with high needs (low-income students, English learners, and foster youth).

Districts are allowed and encouraged to identify and incorporate additional goals into their plans for to reflect local priorities.

The Public Must Be Engaged and Informed

Each school district must engage parents, educators, employees and the community as they develop these district-level plans. The district plan should harmonize with each school's School Plan for Student Achievement.

How does that actually happen?

The State Board of Education defines the templates that districts must use for LCAPs. The first section of the template asks for information about stakeholder engagement. The plans must include goal statements linked to the eight state priorities and budget information showing how districts will pay for the program changes and improvements needed to meet those goals.

LCAPs must be reviewed by a parent committee — especially if a district has many English learners.

The plans cover three years, but they are updated annually. Their development and the updating process must include consultation with various constituencies, including teachers and parents. Ultimately, the plan must be reviewed by a parent advisory committee. If at least 15 percent of the students in a district are English learners, a separate parent committee must provide feedback in this area.

The final LCAPs are approved at the same time as the district’s budget, subject to review by the County Office of Education. This process has made county offices of education a much more important and substantial part of the education system than they were before LCFF became law.

LCAPs and Collective Bargaining

The requirement for each district to create its own accountability plan (LCAP) originated as part of the shift away from state-level mandates about how districts use funds. A number of debates erupted as the State Board attempted to fulfill its charge and develop the regulations surrounding LCFF. The most heated debates concerned the balance between local flexibility on one hand and assuring educational opportunities for high-need students on the other. Civil rights advocates expressed concern that in the rough and tumble of collective bargaining, resources that LCFF allocates on the basis of poverty or language-learning needs would find their way onto the bargaining table, there to be swept up into across-the board teacher salary increases, despite the spirit of the law.

The LCAP was a compromise solution. In principle, it was intended to provide local discretion about the use of funds in exchange for transparency. In practice, districts have varied in their commitment to disclosure. Some LCAPs are detailed. Some are vague, as the State Auditor charged. Unless and until something changes, it is up to each community to dig into the numbers, ask questions, and enforce the intent of the law.

The LCAP During the COVID-19 Pandemic

In normal times, each district’s LCAP must be revised every school year, but the Covid-19 pandemic required some changes. In June of 2020, Senate Bill 98 created new requirements and guidelines for distance learning and layoffs. It also redefined “LCAP” with a new, temporary meaning: the Learning Continuity and Attendance Plan. (You may notice that the two plans conveniently have the same acronym. For simplicity’s sake, we will call the temporary version the LCAP*.)

The two documents are similar in important ways. The LCAP and the LCAP* both require districts to disclose how they spend funds. Both documents require parent and public input before review by the school board and adoption by the county board. But the LCAP* was geared to address the moment — it asked districts to describe their plans to educate all the students in their care through a combination of in-person and remote learning.