California: Obstacle Course: Basic school funding rife with inequities: First of four parts

Sacramento Bee ^ | November 30, 2003 | Deb Kollars

[John Jorsett]

Imagine you need to teach five first-graders to read. And you have $100 to spend on books. But instead of dividing evenly and spending $20 on each, you spend $35 on one, $11.50 on another, and $13, $18 and $22.50 on the other three.

[Amerigomag]

Thanks John

I hope all will attempt to read this primer. The K-12 budget is a melange of history.

I'd prefer going back to before Prop 13 (1978), before Serrano v Priest (1976) and even before the forced unification era (1959-1965). I like to go back even further to about 1935 when there were about 3,500 school districts in California. Little districts with local control and local revenue.

I'd like to see large funding discrepencies between districts. I'd like to see the Los Angeles Unified School District be forced to admit that their problems are all centered around illegal immigration and then lobby the state legislature to do something about it.