Undermine Public Education

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Over the past 20+ years, California’s public school system has been under attack by corporate advocacy groups and the school privatization advocacy sector. Efforts to secure the funding necessary for high-quality public education have been repeatedly thwarted. Meanwhile, public schools have been further undermined by charter schools being provided with preferential status.

Below are some of the key bills and ballot measures that have shaped policy in this area. Click on them to learn more about what they did, or could have done, and who supported and opposed them.

2005-06

This bill sought to raise between $1.7 and $2.2 billion in funding for schools by reinstating the 10% and 11% personal income tax brackets for high-income taxpayers and increasing the alternative minimum tax rates to 8.5%.

Results

Died in Assembly

Supporters

A group of large labor, education stakeholder, and other organizations, including (as of 5/13/05):

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO

California Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO

California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO

California National Organization for Women

California School Employees Association

California Tax Reform Association

Child Care Law Center

Friends Committee on Legislation of California

Jericho

League of Women Voters of California

Opponents

The California Chamber of Commerce, 3 local Chambers of Commerce, the California Taxpayers’ Association, and the National Federation of Independent Business (as of 5/13/05).

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2009-10

This bill sought to make California eligible for the federal school privatization initiative, Race to the Top, by—among other things—eliminating the statutory limit on charter schools in the state.

2009-10

These bills sought to make California eligible for the federal school privatization initiative, Race to the Top, by—among other things—eliminating the statutory limit on charter schools in the state and paving the way for more public schools to be converted to charter schools.

2009-10

This bill would have made charter schools subject to the same open meeting, public records, and conflict of interest laws as public schools.

2009-10

This bill would have established various academic and fiscal accountability standards related to charter schools, including prohibiting a charter school from being operated as or by a for-profit corporation and requiring authorizers to consider, in renewing a charter, the extent to which a charter school serves a student population that is similar to the local school district population.

2011-12

This bill would have required charter schools to comply with the same suspension and expulsion procedures as public schools.

2011-12

This bill would have allowed school districts, counties, cities, county offices of education, and community college districts to impose local taxes with voter approval.

2012

This ballot initiative sought to: (1) increase the state sales tax from 7.25% to 7.50% for a period of four years; (2) create new tax brackets and tax rates for incomes exceeding $250,000 for a period of seven years; and (3) distribute the revenue from the tax increases to K-12 schools and community colleges.

2013-14

This bill established a new K-12 funding system called the Local Control Funding Formula that provided additional funding for schools serving English learners, students eligible for free or reduced price meals, and youth in foster care.

2015-16

This bill would have made charter schools subject to the same open meeting, public records, and conflict of interest laws as public schools.

2017-18

This bill prohibits a charter school from operating as, or by, a for-profit corporation.

2017-18

This bill would have made charter schools subject to the same open meeting, public records, and conflict of interest laws as public schools.

2018

In a demonstration of the school privatization advocacy sector’s enormous financial muscle, former President of Green Dot charter schools, Marshall Tuck, received $80 million from just two sources, a staggering amount for the position of State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

2019-20

This bill would have prohibited the approval of new charter schools because of concerns that the expansion of charter schools was having a negative impact on surrounding public schools.

2020

Proposed amending the California State Constitution to require commercial and industrial properties, except those zoned as commercial agriculture, to be taxed based on their market value, providing $6.5 billion to $11.5 billion in new annual funding to local governments and schools.

2023-24

This bill would have given local school districts additional grounds to show that they are not positioned to absorb the fiscal impact of a proposed charter school.

Where are we now?

If not for this small group of corporate and school privatization advocacy groups, California could have had a thriving education system offering excellent and equitable education to all students across the state for the past 20 years.

Instead, while California has taken other strides to improve school funding (such as through Prop. 30 and the Local Control Funding Formula), California still ranks 36th out of 50 states in K-12 education funding as a percentage of taxpayer income (World Population Review). Moreover, California’s public schools have been forced into direct competition with an extremely well-funded and increasingly powerful charter school sector that is not required to follow the same rules as public schools. As a result, between 2012 and 2021, nearly 700 public schools across the state were closed, resulting in approximately 167,000 students being displaced (Policy Analysis for California Education).

In other words, California’s public schools have been set up to fail, causing irreparable harm to students, families, and communities across the state already, with the potential implications even more severe in the years ahead.

Where are we now? Find out