California’s school funding crisis is on the picket line in LAUSD

Students in a GPSN summer program in Los Angeles Unified School District.

Courtesy: GPSN

Nearly 70,000 LAUSD workers are set to walk off the job on April 14.

The impending strike is part of a wider reckoning in California public education, as districts across the state are reaching similar impasses. Union contracts have expired, inflation has surged, and pay has not followed. This moment has been building for years, and the Los Angeles Unified School District is the most recent district where it is all coming to a head.

Among the tens of thousands of LAUSD employees walking off the job are the custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, gardeners, maintenance staff, early care workers, and special education and teacher assistants of SEIU Local 99 — many of whom are LAUSD families themselves. They drop their own kids off at the same schools in which they work, and they are long-standing members of the communities they serve. Going on strike means their children lose access to the meals, services and classrooms that these same workers provide every day. 

This is not a strike called lightly. The reality is that the majority of SEIU LOCAL 99 members cannot afford one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles, and classified staff are among the hardest hit by the district’s recent preliminary layoff notices and proposed reductions in hours. Under these conditions, there is no other option but to join the picket line. 

But understanding this moment also requires an honest look at the district’s fiscal reality.

LAUSD faces a real $191 million deficit, declining enrollment that shrinks its per-pupil funding base, and the end of pandemic relief dollars that temporarily masked deeper fiscal gaps. Federal uncertainty adds another layer of pressure, with funding freezes and repeated government shutdowns jeopardizing critical resources for students across Los Angeles and beyond.

The system as a whole is under-resourced, and no one at the bargaining table can fix that alone. What may look like intransigence from the outside is, to a large extent, two parties trying to do their best but stuck inside a broken funding structure.

And that is exactly why the path forward requires state leadership.

Just months ago, in his State of the State address, Gov. Gavin Newsom stood before the Legislature and praised LAUSD by name, recognizing that the district is outpacing statewide progress and has reached its highest academic achievement levels in a decade. That progress was hard-won, built by the very teachers and workers now preparing to walk off the job. A strike puts it all at risk. 

The governor cannot celebrate these gains in January and stand on the sidelines in April. He needs to step in to help broker a near-term resolution and then advance the state-level policy changes that are the only real path to long-term structural stability. 

Though California’s per-pupil school spending has risen sharply under Gov. Newsom’s watch, the real increase is far smaller after adjusting for inflation. Additionally, this year’s funding bump is largely a one-time windfall, driven by potentially volatile, AI-fueled revenue gains rather than durable investment, meaning the extra money cannot be relied upon as continued relief for schools. His proposed 2026-27 budget also defers $5.6 billion in Proposition 98 payments owed to schools, shifting the cost into future years and essentially borrowing from classrooms to cover Sacramento’s deficit.

California still funds schools based on attendance rather than enrollment, and changing that is one concrete step the governor can champion now. When students are absent, districts lose money, and those losses hit hardest in communities already facing instability. For LAUSD, the impact of this policy on its finances is significant: it loses about $60 million in state revenue for every 1 percentage-point drop in average daily attendance. That vulnerability is particularly acute right now, as attendance levels still lag behind pre-pandemic levels and aggressive immigration enforcement is driving many families to keep children home out of fear, compounding attendance losses that districts like LAUSD can ill afford.

There is also a broader debate over whether the state is funding schools at a level that truly reflects student need, or merely enough to keep the system barely afloat. The Legislature has already begun grappling with these questions: AB 1204 would strengthen the Local Control Funding Formula by better targeting resources toward students experiencing homelessness and other high-need populations and addressing inflationary pressures; and AB477, the Fair Pay for Educators Act, which would set higher funding targets designed to help districts pay educators competitively. Gov. Newsom should make moving California toward a funding level that is truly adequate for its schools a defining priority of his final year in office.

The striking workers are not the cause of this crisis; they are its most visible symptom. The cause is a system that has been under-resourced for decades and, without state action, districts like LAUSD will keep finding themselves at the same table, with the same shortfall, and the same impossible choices. 

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Ana Ponce is CEO of GPSN, a nonprofit grant-making organization focused on improving educational outcomes and opportunities for Los Angeles children of color and those living in poverty.

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