January 2021

Worth It: Eight Ways to Prioritize Equity in LA Unified’s Budget

On January 19, 2021, we published our third funding policy report entitled, “Worth It: Eight Ways to Prioritize Equity in LA Unified’s Budget.” Investing in our students is worth it and we have developed several funding recommendations for LA Unified to help level the playing field for high-need schools through 2024. Our policy brief focuses on using the Student Equity Need Index (SENI) – an index that ranks all K-12 schools in LA Unified from highest-need to lowest-need – to allocate district funding equitably. LA Unified must now find a way to scale the successful SENI funding formula, and to further expand upon these efforts to integrate SENI’s equitable approach into a more significant portion of its budget and resource allocation. This will be especially important in 2021, since LA Unified is projected to receive substantial extra funding from state and federal sources this year. Check out our eight recommendations for LA Unified funding in this graphic and read the complete list of recommendations below.