Equitable School Facilities
Every California student deserves a safe, healthy, climate-resilient school. CC+S research and data show where the state’s school facility system falls short — and what it will take to fix it.
Why School Facilities Matter
Every day, millions of elementary and secondary school children in the U.S. attend public schools with deteriorated and obsolete facilities that undermine achievement, harm health, and are not climate resilient.
The conditions and qualities of school facility infrastructure matter to children, families, and communities. School facility inequity was a major complaint in the 1954 Brown v Board of Education case and remains a problem in communities across America today. Decades of research confirm that the conditions and qualities of school facilities can positively or negatively impact students, teachers, and overall academic achievement. The facilities are not the most important aspect of school quality, but they are foundational.
Our work is informed by four core beliefs:
- School facility quality has a clear and measurable impact on student learning, staff job satisfaction, the health and well being of staff and students, and community quality of life.
- Capital funding for public school facility infrastructure remains the most regressive element of public education finance.
- State and local policies, guidelines, and practices for public school facilities are under-developed and often disconnected from education equity, health equity, and overall community resilience.
- Many districts are missing out on the opportunity to use school facility planning to build social capital and foster the rebuilding of trust with communities undermined by discrimination and neglect.
Funding Equity
Equitable funding for school facilities is the great unfinished work of the California’s goal of financial reform. In 2012, California redesigned its way of funding K-12 education. The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) restructured state funding to local districts to be based on enrollment and need, measured by the number of English Learners, foster, and low-income students. Facility funding for K-12 schools, however, continues to be based primarily on local property wealth. The state’s School Facility Program is based not on local need, capacity, or facility quality, but on the amount of local funds raised. CC+S and other researchers have repeatedly found that state funding overwhelmingly reinforces local wealth disparities, rather than mitigating them.
Until California adopts a similar approach to funding its aging school facilities, the promise of educational equity will remain unfulfilled.
Interactive storymap on equity in California school facility funding, For Equity’s Sake: Fix the School Facility Program
Proposition 2: 2024 School Facilities Bond
Still Waiting for Equity: 2024 California School Facilities Bond (AB247)
Climate Resilient Schools
Climate-Resilient California Schools: A Call to Action
In 2023 we published this report with Stanford Medicine’s Center for Innovation in Global Health, CC+S, UndauntedK12, and Ten Strands. The report provides a comprehensive look at climate-driven impacts on California’s children, drawing together research from the pediatric, public health, climate, and education fields. The report was developed with input from a statewide coalition of nearly 50 stakeholders—including doctors, medical and environmental health researchers, educators, youth and community groups.
In the spring of 2022, a group of education, climate, health, youth, and labor leaders began collaborating to share policy priorities and develop common state policy and budget asks in support of #climatereadyschools for California’s most vulnerable students. Since the initial working group meetings, the Coalition has grown from a handful of organizations to 30 diverse groups representing various perspectives on education and climate policy.
Featured Research
Start with our flagship reports on California’s school facilities
California’s School Facilities in a Changing Climate: Funding, Equity, and Resilience
A statewide analysis of how climate change is reshaping the funding, equity, and resilience needs of California’s K-12 school facilities.
Climate-Resilient California Schools: A Call to Action
A call to action from pediatric, public health, and education experts on protecting California’s children from climate impacts at school.
Gauging Good Stewardship: Is California Adequately and Equitably Investing in its Public School Facilities?
A decade of evidence on whether California is adequately and equitably investing in its public school facilities.