Is California Equitably Serving California Indian Students? A Comparison of Per-Pupil Funding and Family Wealth

California introduced the local control funding formula (LCFF) in 2013–14 to provide more equitable educational funding for school districts that were historically underserved. LCFF established base, supplemental and concentration grants to replace the earlier streams of funding in communities that serve students who are English learners, qualify for free or reduced-priced school meals, live in foster care, or experience any combination of these factors. The goal of this study is to determine if California’s LCFF is equitably funding public schools in California Indian communities, communities that historically suffered from inadequate educational funding. How does educational funding at schools that serve predominately California Indians compare to districts that serve predominately White students, and how does family wealth for the two groups compare? To answer these questions, the per-pupil funding of school districts with the highest percentage of California Indian students was compared against districts with the highest percentage of White students. Poverty rates, median family income and home values were also compared to assess relative family wealth. Results revealed no statistical difference in per-pupil allocations, both groups had higher than the state average, and both were situated in rural areas. Comparisons also revealed that California Indian families had twice the poverty rate than White families, and their median family income and median home value was about half as much. Findings show that the LCFF does not allocate more per-pupil funding to California Indian communities than predominantly White communities, despite having higher poverty rates, lower family income and lower home values. These findings contradict the findings by Richwine (2011) who claimed that people of color get more educational funding than White students.