Robby Hill

Instr. Katie Rasmussen

Liberal Studies 3001
26 February 2015
Funding Inequality in California Public Schools Following Serrano V Priest
Serrano V Priest was a California Supreme Court case that resulted in public
school funding reforms in California. The idea was that schools would be funded
equally by the state, rather than by district revenue, to address the sharp resource
disparities between districts. The court voted in favor of the plaintiffs, who argued
that wealth-based funding violates the equal protections clause of the 14 th
amendment. In 1977, the court ordered a time table of six years to bring the
funding system into compliance with its decision.
Unfortunately, the system remains in ruin, and equal access to education, a
constitutional and civil right, is unavailable to students who live in poor districts. In
2011, per-student spending in the Tamalpais Union High School district was
$15,100. When averaged with the local elementary district, it worked out to
$12,729 per student. That same year, a mere fifteen miles east in West Contra
Costa Unified, per-student spending was $8,899. The reason these disparities have
not been remedied is complex, and reflects overall economic inequality and race/
class politics. However, there is clear policy recourse that needs to be explored. In
order for students in the state of California to have fair and equal access to
education, the Basic Aid option must be terminated, along with parcel taxes and
school bonds.

Basic Aid allows wealthy school districts to opt out of the Revenue Limit
program, which would calculate their funding based on ADA, or average daily
attendance. A district can vote for Basic Aid funding if its property tax revenue
exceeds what the Revenue Limit funding would be. This is problematic on many
levels. First, it confines the resources of the wealthiest communities to their own
school districts. Second, it removes those resources from the pool from which all
the other districts in the state are being funded, effectively preserving the status
quo that Serrano V Priest sought to redress.
Wealthy school districts have two other funding options available to them,
which widen the gap between privileged and underprivileged students. If a district
votes for a parcel tax, it can obtain additional funding based on overall property
value. Unsurprisingly, districts that vote for a parcel tax are tend to be populated
by wealthy people who can afford to pay it. And in the rare instances where a
relatively poor, or economically diverse district like Oakland Unified votes for a
parcel tax, low average property values diminish the amount of funding they
receive. For example, property owners in Oakland Unified pay a $195 parcel tax,
while property owners in its wealthy enclave, Piedmont, pay $1,200. This disparity
is inversely proportional to need, as reflected by the fact that nearly 70 percent of
students in Oakland qualify for free lunches, compared to .3 percent in Piedmont.
The same precedent of inequality is operational with regards to School Bonds.
Wealthy districts will be more likely to commit themselves to a bond measure
because they have the resources to pay if off.
The fact that the wealthiest districts, funded by their own property taxes, are
voting for School bonds and parcel taxes, and often times fund raising
independently, (Basic Aid funded Ross Elementary raises over $1,000,000 annually)

means that even in the most privileged parts of our state, public education is
grossly underfunded. This issue will never receive the urgent attention it deserves
unless privileged communities are denied access to their loopholes. Poor
communities dont have a voice in the political arena, as evidenced by the fact that
these inequities have dragged on for thirty plus years after the Supreme Court
deemed them unconstitutional. Funding needs to be distributed fairly and evenly
from the state, and the state needs to seriously reconsider its budget, because
public education in California is in crisis.