California schools get hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the state to identify and assist disabled children who have mental health problems.

But we don’t know how the money is spent or if it is helping the kids perform better in school.

That’s the main finding of a recent report by the California State Auditor, and it will be on the agenda Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate’s mental health committee.

“It appears we give all this money to the schools, hundreds of millions of dollars every year, and yet … we don’t have some kind of way of measuring performance,” said state Sen. Jim Beall (D-San Jose), who chairs the committee. “We don’t know how our dollars are being spent. It’s essentially a black box.”

To continue reading this story by David Gorn, go to: http://www.californiahealthlin...ollars-helping-kids/