![]() ![]() Prop 13 was, in many ways, a reaction to those rulings. The problem got so bad that the California supreme court, in a series of rulings in the early 1970s, declared the uneven funding to be unconstitutional and ordered the state to make up the difference. It soon became clear that Prop 13 was wreaking havoc not just on education but on the whole system of state governance That meant cities had vastly better schools than rural areas, and affluent white suburbs were far ahead of black and Latino neighborhoods many of which, at the time, were still subject to curfew laws and other forms of de facto racial segregation. There is, however, a second explanation, one that knocks some off the shine off California’s golden reputation as a beacon of educational progressivism in the 1950s and early 1960s: that the school system, like the state itself, has always been beset by racial and economic inequalities and what has changed over time has merely been the severity of the same obstinate underlying problem.īack in the days when property taxes accounted for more than 50% of school funding, counties and neighborhoods with higher property values were able to direct much more money to the local education system. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images A history of inequality “It changed the amount of money districts could raise through property taxes and cut revenue dramatically. “People always come back to Prop 13 because a lot of the other changes since are a result, either direct or indirect, of that vote,” said Jennifer Imazeki, an economist and education specialist at San Diego State University. It currently ranks 43rd out of 50 states. Within a decade, California was below the national average. ![]() ![]() The school system was already in a modest decline – California had fallen from fifth in the country in per-pupil spending in 1965 to 14th – but the decline now accelerated markedly. Overnight, the tax revenue available to pay for public schooling was slashed by one-third, forcing the state to step in and make up some – but not all – of the shortfall. The initiative, which passed with close to 65% support, was billed as a grassroots tax revolt against a backdrop of high inflation, rising interest rates and a perception of out-of-control public spending. Proposition 13 drastically cut and capped property taxes and hobbled the ability of California counties – and, indirectly, the state – to raise money for schools and other key social programs. And the gulf between rich and poor has grown only wider as a result of bitter ideological warfare over schools, taxes and property values.Īsk any public policy expert what single factor contributed most to the decline of California’s schools, and the answer will invariably be the state’s retro version of Brexit: a referendum, passed in 1978 on a wave of populist anger, that was earth-shattering in its impact and has proven enduringly divisive. The golden age of the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the state embarked on a program of spending on schools, universities, freeways and other urban infrastructure, feels painfully distant. Yet it is also a state of vast inequalities and pervasive poverty, particularly in rural areas and in the blighted neighborhoods of its biggest cities. California has a greater concentration of billionaires and holders of university doctorates than any place on earth. It’s a grim picture, affecting a district of more than half a million students and 31,000 teachers, and one that seems baffling in a state that remains the unquestioned powerhouse of the American economy.
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