How much does California spend to educate your child?

The answer depends on where your child goes to school. In Livermore, it's $4,609. In neighboring Pleasanton, it's $5,422. Mt. Diablo schools receive $4,642 per student, while Dublin gets $5,677.

Those are 2001-02 numbers, the latest available from the state Department of Education, but they have gone up only slightly over the past two years, and the gaps have not closed. This school year, the state average for base per-pupil funding is $4,800, with a high of $8,300 and a low of $4,400, according to the governor's budget plan.

The disparities stem from 30-year-old funding formulas that locked in levels based on how much schools had been spending before the state system was created, which depended on their property tax revenue. Many suburban communities were rural at the time and had lower property tax revenue. Pleasanton and Dublin locked in a higher per-pupil rate when they unified in 1988.

In this time of budget problems so severe that some districts are considering closing schools, those differences in school funding are becoming more apparent and painful.

The situation is so bad in Livermore that the school board is considering closing at least one elementary school and ending the class-size reduction program. Meanwhile, in Pleasanton, a healthy reserve has saved the district from major cuts.

Many educators and parents in lower-funded districts such as Livermore, San Ramon and Lafayette cheered when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger included $110 million in his budget proposal to help move them closer to the state average.

If the money is included in the final state budget, it would mean an extra $1.1 million for the Mt. Diablo district, $788,000 for the San Ramon Valley schools, $355,600 for Livermore and hundreds of thousands more for districts throughout the East Bay, according to estimates from Assemblyman Guy Houston, R-Livermore.

For the past few years, busloads of parents have traveled to Sacramento to ask for more equal funding. Sally Esser, president of the Parent Teacher Organization at Arroyo Mocho Elementary in Livermore, is one of them.

"I feel that it's basically an unfair system," Esser said. "When times get tight, we have to make cuts that they don't have to make."

In part because of the parents' advocacy, the issue has been a priority for some legislative leaders, but in recent years the money has fallen victim to the state's budget crisis.

Houston, who met with the governor and another Republican legislative leader about the equal-funding issue, said the governor agreed that the system is unfair.

"I sincerely do think it is unfair that one child would get more for his education than the other child," Houston said. "He sees that."

Former Gov. Gray Davis did not oppose the plan, but he preferred to target funding to schools that needed to improve, according to his former spokeswoman, Hilary McLean. The plan has bipartisan support, but many observers fear it may not survive budget negotiations in a year of deep budget cuts.

For Livermore, the extra $355,000 would be a little less than the cost of class-size reduction in one grade, said Bob Bronzan, deputy superintendent.

"We would make great use of those dollars," he said. "But it is merely a gesture in the direction of what equalization would be in terms of our ability to compete with other districts in the valley."