What do California schools need? $1.5 trillion, studies suggest

California's immense public school system is plagued by gross inefficiencies and inequalities that will require fundamental reforms and much more money, according to a series of studies released this week. Suggested reforms included making it easier to fire bad teachers, providing massive infusions of resources to schools that serve the poor, delivering more accurate student data and eliminating excessive paperwork and conflicting rules and directives. The most eye-catching detail in these reports, obtained by The Times, was the calculation that $1.5 trillion more each year would be needed to make all students academically proficient under the current system. That's about 25 times more than present spending for the K-12 and community college systems, which consumes about half of the state budget.

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