The Adults Have Flunked. So Put California Kids in Charge of School Spending.

Students Already Make Budget Decisions in Some Locales, and Should Participate Statewide

California education finances are an unholy mess—with incomprehensible budget formulas, a new equity funding program that doesn’t produce equity, and cuts to schools even during the current economic expansion. And our state’s so-called education leaders steadfastly refuse to fix the system.

We should let the kids fix it instead.

This isn’t a modest proposal or an off-the-wall provocation: I’m as serious as a month’s detention. To fashion something workable from California’s broken education-funding system, we should give budget powers to the students themselves.

Sounds radical, but it’s not a new …