California’s groundbreaking Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) has advanced resource allocation to historically under-served students by distributing larger proportions of funding to high-need local education agencies (LEAs), leading to greater academic gains.

However, opportunities remain to improve the LCFF’s resource distribution, particularly for students in under-resourced settings. For example, the tool for local educational agencies to set goals, plan actions, and leverage resources – the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) – has become a lengthy compliance-oriented document, limiting its transparency and accessibility for LEAs in their strategic planning efforts.

This policy brief provides a short overview of California’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and highlights improvement opportunities based on a decade of credible research, the experience of WestEd experts, and evidence on the LCFF’s implementation thus far.