| Funding and governance of public education have been the topic of an ongoing debate in the United States. Despite myriad reform efforts, no state education system has yet been successful at achieving equity and adequacy. In response to this persistent issue, California lawmakers enacted a groundbreaking education reform system, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which empowered local communities to determine how to govern and fund their schools. This study analyzed the responses of superintendents and assistant superintendents to interview questions about how they led the implementation of LCFF to gain insight into whether the significant changes intended by the reform were under way and to determine if the changes they made within their districts reflected an authentic effort to effect real systems change or primarily demonstrated compliance. The questions were derived from Fullan and Quinn's (2016) coherence framework, which incorporates research-based strategies for effective whole systems change. Ten district leaders representing 9 districts in San Diego County participated in the study. Analysis of the findings revealed that superintendents and assistant superintendents are implementing LCFF in alignment with the tenets of the coherence framework. It was concluded that the district leaders made authentic efforts to implement LCFF as intended and were not merely demonstrating compliance with state mandates. |
