Governor’s May Budget Revision Opens New Doors to School Redesign and Implementation
The release of the Governor’s May budget revision always spurs a frenzy of activity in Sacramento. For those watching education news, this year is particularly eventful. Here we share a few highlights from the May revision that create meaningful opportunities for Linked Learning and secondary school redesign efforts across the state. Across these proposals, we see growing recognition that improving student outcomes at scale requires greater coherence between academics, student supports, and real-world experiences—as well as new levels of coordination across K–12 systems, postsecondary institutions, employers, and community partners. The Alliance will keep you posted as legislators continue to refine the budget over the next 30 days.
Fueling Community Schools—A Powerful Counterpart to Linked Learning
Pairing community schools with wall-to-wall Linked Learning pathways is a powerful approach to secondary school redesign. We saw compelling examples of this during last fall’s conference, where participants in site visits to Oakland Unified School District experienced how community schools and Linked Learning amplify each other as a coherent secondary redesign strategy.
We are thrilled to see the governor’s revised budget maintains major investments in community schools while also proposing additional resources to support expansion efforts across the state, with a specific emphasis on its application in middle and high schools. Most gratifying for us, the May revision includes a proposed $50 million investment to expand secondary school redesign efforts in the context of community schools. If included in the final budget, this could create an important opportunity for local leaders to partner with families, employers, and postsecondary institutions to redesign secondary schools in ways that are learner-centered, community-connected, and aligned to young people’s college and career aspirations.
To support local leaders thinking about this work, we are about to release an updated community schools and Linked Learning framework designed to help districts integrate these approaches into coherent secondary redesign efforts. Keep an eye out for this new resource!
Flexible Funding for Building Your Capacity
The May revision continues funding for the Student Support and Professional Development Discretionary Block Grant, which helps LEAs address rising costs while also investing in statewide priorities. One of these priorities is Career Pathways and Dual Enrollment expansion aligned with the Master Plan for Career Education. We are pleased to see any addition to the funds education communities can use to drive even higher levels of quality in your Linked Learning pathways.
We are also glad to see this budget call out dual enrollment as a priority related to high quality pathways. Many Linked Learning educators and administrators have shared with us that you wish you had capacity and support to make dual enrollment a well-aligned and opportunity-expanding component of your pathway programs. In response, the Alliance is working with leaders across our network to develop a strand of conference workshops focused specifically on designing high-quality pathway-aligned dual enrollment through CCAP and articulation agreements.
Governance Shifts to Improve Alignment and Efficiency
The May revision maintains the proposal put forward in the initial budget to reorganize state governance of public education. This proposal has generated significant debate in the legislature, in part because governance reform is fundamentally different from making investments in a discrete strategy like community schools. It is a systemic change designed to make the implementation of all future topical investments more effective. Under the proposal, a governor-appointed commissioner of education would oversee the California Department of Education and be accountable to the State Board of Education, while the elected superintendent’s role would shift toward public representation, intergovernmental coordination, and policy advising.
The Alliance sees potential value in efforts to streamline educational governance and clarify state direction and responsibility for implementation. We also affirm some of the May revision’s additions to this proposal—including that the incoming commissioner, within their first year, is obligated to determine steps needed to ensure alignment and efficiency. This change makes improving implementation central to the work of the first person to fill this new office.
If you want to delve deeply into this issue, we suggest this recent research from PACE and this report included in Getting Down to Facts III.
Looking Ahead Together
As California continues investing in secondary school redesign, community schools, dual enrollment, and cross-system alignment, we believe the field will need spaces to learn together, coordinate implementation efforts, and translate broad policy goals into coherent local practice. The Linked Learning Alliance is actively organizing resources, convenings, and implementation support designed to help local leaders make the most of these emerging opportunities. We look forward to continuing to learn alongside you and supporting your part in this transformation.