Editor’s note: This has been excerpted with permission from the Pacific Research Institute. To read the entire report, click here.

After sharply criticizing California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s unaccountable education spending proposals, I was happily surprised to see my criticisms vindicated in a recent court settlement that will force the state to finally demonstrate that its spending programs actually produce positive outcomes for students.

In Newsom’s proposed 2024-25 budget, he included billions of dollars to address the learning loss of children that were caused in significant part by his policies that forced public schools in California to remain closed longer than in most other states.

In a January article for PRI’s Right by the Bay blog, I wrote that Newsom’s multi-billion-dollar learning-loss spending proposal was inherently defective because it contained no “student outcome measurements and targets.” I asked how would Californians know if the billions he seeks to spend is paying off?

Specifically, I asked, “If one in four eighth graders are proficient in math today, then should one in two eighth graders be proficient in math in five years after spending billions of tax dollars to help them recover lost learning?”

I lamented, “Thus, for all the spending, Californians will never know if they received any bang for their taxpayer buck.”

However, for once, my lamentation was actually premature.

Just a few weeks after I wrote that article, the state settled a lawsuit, Cayla J. v. the State of California, et al, involving learning-loss funds. According to the publication EdSource, the state agreed to “pursue statutory changes that would commit districts and schools to measure and report on student progress using proven strategies.”

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