Calif. Ordered To Overhaul School Construction Funding

By Bess Keller

California must change its current system of distributing school construction money to place less emphasis on how quickly districts apply for the funds and more on how badly they need them, a Los Angeles judge has ruled.

State trial court Judge David P. Yaffee ordered the state to come up with a different way to distribute the roughly $1.4 billion remaining from a $2.9 billion fund for new schools financed through a 1998 bond issue. The new system must give greater priority to districts with the most school overcrowding, the judge said in the Aug. 24 order.

Judge Yaffee told the state to report to him on a new ranking...