New INTERACTIVE TOOL Tracks Damage From Proposed Federal Education Cuts by CA Congressional District
A new Catalyst California interactive tool released with We Are California shows how proposed congressional budget cuts would hurt students in every California congressional district.
The cuts are part of a broad agenda that will upend services on which millions of Californians depend, turning them into tax breaks for billionaires. Allowing the cuts would spike poverty and widen inequity across California.
Click on a congressional district below to learn how many students and dollars in the district could be impacted by these cuts. Use the navigation on the right of the map to view a different targeted student group or funding source.
Our tool tracks:
- Impact of proposed cuts to Title I, which supplements funding for extra reading and math instruction, tutoring services, and educator professional development for school districts serving low-income families
- Impact of proposed cuts to the National School Lunch Program which provides free and reduced-price meals for students
- Impact of proposed special education/early intervention program cuts that would limit access to special education teachers, physical, behavioral and occupational therapies, and other services that help integrate children with disabilities into the classroom
For example, in Central California's District 22, represented by Republican David Valadao, almost 148,000 students (more than 5 of every 6) rely on the National School Lunch Program. The cuts would leave low-income school children in rural areas and towns like Delano and parts of Bakersfield without essential daily nutrition.
Nearly 80 percent of that district’s $169 million in funds for free and reduced-price meals comes only from federal sources.
Similarly, just over 23,000 students are enrolled in special education programs in District 48 in Southern California, represented by Republican Darrell Issa.
These programs help children with disabilities fully participate in the classroom by providing a variety of individual services, among them counseling, physical and occupational therapy, and even transportation. One-sixth of District 48 students rely on these programs, which become more important for families as staff cuts in the Department of Education narrow their options in cases of suspected discrimination in denial of services.
Call to action
Californians are fighting back, using every tool at their disposal to defend their children. At the moment, constituents are calling their representatives to account by flooding their offices with calls and staging protests.
You can use our web tool to find the number of children in your district that could suffer if Congress approves the cuts. We hope this tool supports your advocacy demands for our representatives to protect vulnerable California students. Together, we can turn back the existential threat to our way of life that these budget cuts represent.
Methodology
We combine data from California Department of Education datasets to estimate the number of children benefiting from free or reduced-price meals and/or special education by congressional district. We use the Legislative Lookup for California Schools and Districts to match schools to their respective congressional districts. We also use the tool to match school district-level funding records to the congressional districts with which they overlap.
To calculate the free or reduced-price meal (FRPM) and special education enrollment by congressional district, we first match schools to their respective congressional districts using each school’s unique County-District-School (CDS) code. We then sum program enrollment for all schools in each congressional district to calculate the total number of students relying on FRPM and/or special education services. The percentage of students relying on programs is calculated by dividing the program enrollment by the total student enrollment in the congressional district. Please note a student could be eligible both for FRPM and special education and thus would be counted in each total.
To calculate revenue by congressional district, we rely on school district budget data from the California Department of Education Standardized Account Code Structure Data Viewer for the Budget, July 1 reporting period both for fiscal years 2023-24 and 2024-25. We first calculate the school district level revenue for each category. We use 2023-24 estimates for most school districts. Fourteen school districts, out of 938 total districts, did not have a reported budget for the July 1st period in 2023-24. In these cases, we use the July 1st budget estimates from 2024-25. We exclude County Offices of Education, State Board of Education schools, and State Special Schools from budget calculations.
Title I revenue is based on Title I, Part A, Basic fund code “01”, resource code “3010”, and object code “8290”. We combine Special Education Entitlements and Special Education Discretionary Grants for a single federal revenue dollar figure. Special Education Entitlements are from fund code “01” and object code “8181”. Special Education Discretionary Grants are from fund code “01” and object code “8182”. FRPM Total Revenue is equal to the Cafeteria Special Revenue Fund - Total Revenue, specifically fund code “13” and object codes “8000-8999”. FRPM Federal Revenue is equal to the Cafeteria Special Revenue Fund - Federal Revenue, specifically fund code “13” and object codes “8100-8299”.
We scale school district level budgets to congressional districts by multiplying the revenue categories by the percentage of the program’s student enrollment in each congressional district. These percentages are based on crosswalks we calculate between school districts and schools to congressional districts.
We aggregate data for all schools within a congressional district grouping by school district to calculate each congressional district’s enrollment counts specific to each school district. We then divide the congressional district counts for the different student groups (FRPM and special education enrollment) by the overall school district enrollment numbers for those groups to get the percentage of school district students that are in a given congressional district. Special education enrollment percentages do not include District of Special Education Accountability-level (DSEA) data. FRPM dollars are adjusted based on the percentage of the school district’s FRPM enrollment in the congressional district. Special education dollars are adjusted based on the percentage of the school district’s special education enrollment in the congressional district. Title I dollars are adjusted based on the total percentage enrollment in the congressional district. Because FRPM is funded by a combination of federal and state dollars in California, we divided the total FRPM revenue by the revenue from federal sources to demonstrate what percentage of the FRPM revenue in the congressional district could be impacted by federal budget cuts. Only federal Title I and special education dollars are included in this analysis.
Data Sources
California Department of Education, Free or Reduced-Price Meals Data File, 2023-2024
California Department of Education, Special Education Data Files, 2023-2024
California Department of Education, Legislative Lookup for California Schools and Districts, 2023
California State Geoportal, US Congressional Districts, 2022