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  • Survey: Californians are worried about student health, lukewarm toward a state school bond

    Survey: Californians are worried about student health, lukewarm toward a state school bond


    Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource

    Californians remain anxious about the mental health of public school students four years after the Covid virus closed down schools, according to a new survey released Wednesday. They also indicated they’re lukewarm toward passing a statewide school construction bond.

    In the Public Policy Institute of California’s survey of 1,605 California adult residents, 81% of all adults and public school parents said they were strongly or somewhat concerned  about students’ mental health and well-being – a view that, for most part, cut across race, political party affiliation and family income. The number reflects a continuing worry about the persistent impact of the pandemic two years after students returned to the classroom following school closures of more than a year.

    SOURCE: PPIC Statewide Survey, April 2024. Survey was fielded from March 19-25, 2024 (n=1,605 adults, n=1,089 likely voters, and n=252 public school parents).
    PPIC

    Advocates for a statewide bond to build and repair TK-12 school facilities may face an uphill battle to pass it – assuming Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators put the issue before voters in November.

    Only 53% of likely voters said they would vote for a state bond, while 44% said they’d vote no, with only 3% undecided, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, which on Wednesday released its annual survey of voters’ view on TK-12 education issues. The number is well below 60%, the standard level of favorability that comforts backers of an initiative heading into a campaign.

    The mid-March survey also found mixed views on how Newsom and the Legislature are handling the state education system; 51% of all Californians and 60% of public school parents said they liked how he had managed education. That’s the lowest number since his election in 2018, and consistent with PPIC’s most recent survey on his overall job performance. The survey had a margin of error of 3.3% plus or minus. 

    Newsom’s highest rating was in April 2020, when 73% of likely voters approved and 26% disapproved of his performance on TK-12 education. That coincided with the emergence of the coronavirus, and his decision to close schools. “Newsom got a bump in the early days of the crisis for responding decisively amid the shock of the pandemic,” said Mark Baldassare, survey director and chair of public policy for PPIC. 

    The Legislature and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond also received roughly 50% approval in the latest survey; however, the poll also showed that most Californians agreed with their positions on social and political issues that captured headlines in the past year.

    • 69% of all adults said they strongly (43%) or somewhat (26%) oppose individual school boards passing laws to ban and remove certain books from classrooms and school libraries; a smaller majority of public school parents (30% strongly, 25% somewhat) agreed. Last year, Newsom threatened to fine Temecula Valley Unified and replace a social studies textbook that the board rejected because it included a reference to the late gay activist Harvey Milk; the board reversed its position.
    • 58% of all adults and 55% of public school parents oppose individual school boards creating policies to restrict what subjects teachers and students can discuss in the classroom.
    • More than 80% of adults and public school parents strongly or somewhat favor teaching about the history of slavery, racism, and segregation in public schools; more than 50% of all respondents strongly held that view.
    • Local schools got good marks for preparing students for college, but less so the workforce. 60% of all adults and 72% of public school parents said their schools did well preparing students for college, while 51% of all adults and 65% said they did a good job preparing students for jobs and the workforce.  Only 45% of African American respondents said the schools did a good job for college, compared with 64% of Asian Americans, 61% of Latinos and 61% of Whites.

    As with these and many of the issues surveyed, there was a sharp partisan division, with most Democrats supporting Newsom’s positions and most Republicans opposing them.

    California adults were about evenly split (50% support, 49% oppose), however, on whether to allow books with stories about transgender youth in public schools. Three in four Democrats support this, while eight in 10 Republicans oppose it, and independents are divided (51% support, 48% oppose). Only 42% of public school parents support the idea, and 57% said they oppose it; they also opposed including lessons on transgender issues by the same breakdown.

    Newsom and the Legislature have committed billions of dollars to phase in voluntary transitional kindergarten for all 4-year-olds. Two-thirds of all adults, including 77% of public school parents, 80% of Democrats, 41% of Republicans, 84% of Blacks, and 57% of Whites, said that’s a good idea.  

    Uncertainty about bond issue

    Newsom said in January that he supports placing a school construction bond on the November statewide ballot; voters last passed a state bond in 2016, and the state has run out of money to contribute to districts’ share of new construction and renovations.

    However, Newsom and legislative leaders have not negotiated the specifics. School consultant Kevin Gordon, president of Capitol Advisors, said that polling results could affect the size and scope of a bond. Instead of a $15 billion bond that legislative leaders have discussed, it could be much less; instead of including money for the University of California and California State University, which polls less favorably than TK-12, it could include money only for TK-12 and community colleges, he said.

    Gordon and Baldassare disagreed on how much to read into the 53% support of the bond eight months before the election.

    “All of the not-so-good news about the state budget, with billions of dollars in red ink, has had an impact on voters’ attitude that affects the bond issue now,” Gordon said. “But after this summer, with a balanced budget adopted, and with economists optimistic about the latter part of 2024, voters’ attitude could change.”

    Credit: Public Policy Institute of California, April 2024 survey

    Four years ago, voters rejected a state bond 46% to 54% in the March 2020 primary election. But, Gordon said, voters have never defeated a state bond initiative in a November election, which attracts more people to the polls.

    Baldassare said the bare majority support in the survey shows “there is a lot of economic anxiety among voters over inflation and anxiety over taking on more debt.” That showed in the bare passage last month, with 50.2% of the vote, of Proposition 1. It will determine how to spend money on housing for unhoused people suffering from mental illness.

    The survey also produced mixed, and perhaps puzzling results to the same questions asked in previous surveys:

    Asked “how concerned are you that California’s K-12 public school students in lower-income areas are less likely than other students to be ready for college,” 39% this year said “very concerned.” That’s the lowest percentage since the question was introduced in 2010, when 59% said they were very concerned.

    Asked, “How would you rate the quality of public schools in your neighborhood today,” 49% of likely voters gave their schools an A or B. That’s nine percentage points higher than last year and in pre-pandemic 2019.

    Asked whether the quality of education has gotten worse over the past few years, 52% of adults said it was worse, 11% said it had improved, and 34% said about the same. That was an improvement from last year, when 62% said education had gotten worse and only 5% said it had improved – and far better than in 2011. That was during the depths of the Great Recession, when school districts were slashing budgets following cuts in state revenue: that year, 62% said schools had gotten worse.





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  • $10 billion school construction bond headed to Nov. 5 ballot: what’s in it?

    $10 billion school construction bond headed to Nov. 5 ballot: what’s in it?


    Construction site at Murray Elementary in Dublin Unified in 2022.

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    Legislators are poised to place a $10 billion construction bond for K-12 schools and community colleges on the Nov. 5 statewide ballot. If voters agree, the money will replenish a pool of state matching money that ran dry for building new schools and for fixing old ones – benefiting many districts.

    With 34 authors and co-authors, Assembly Bill 247, laying out the details of the bond, is expected to pass easily. It will receive a hearing today, only two days after it was made public after weeks of negotiations. The Assembly and Senate are expected to approve it on Wednesday, the deadline for final wording for November initiatives.  Approval will require two-thirds majority support.

    “California urgently needs a statewide school bond to repair dilapidated and unsafe school facilities and to invest in our children to meet 21st century educational and workforce needs,” stated Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), chair of the Assembly Education Committee and primary author of AB 247.

    The last school construction bond, passed in 2016, was for $9 billion. Since then, needs have piled up. The Legislature has added a new grade, transitional kindergarten, and appropriated $4 billion to turn schools into community schools, demanding more space for services, from tutoring to mental health. Increasing threats from flooding, heat, and fires raise the need for climate-resilient responses, from shade structures to energy and air conditioning upgrades.

    The bond will allow districts to use the money for all of those purposes and seek a supplemental grant to construct or renovate transitional kindergarten classrooms and build gyms, all-purpose rooms, or kitchens in schools that lack them. The bond would also set aside $150 million to remove lead from school water.

    School districts must pass bonds through property taxes to take advantage of state subsidies. Critics have long charged that the formula for matching money—60% of any qualifying cost of a modernization project and 50% for new construction—has sharply disadvantaged school districts with low property values per student. With larger tax bases and the ability to spread the tax burden, property-rich districts can issue larger bonds, gobbling up a disproportionate share of the state-matching money.

    The state’s $10 million bond will use a slightly different formula, offering a little more to districts with lower property rates.  But the system will remain largely intact – and unconstitutional, said reform advocate John Affeldt, managing attorney for the public interest law firm Public Advocates. In February, it filed a complaint with state officials, threatening a lawsuit on the grounds that the facilities program discriminates against students in low-wealth districts and denies them an opportunity for an equal education.

    The bill’s authors have slightly modified the distribution formula. A sliding-scale system will give districts with high rates of low-income students and, to a lesser extent, low assessed property per student as much as an additional 5 percentage point match: 65% for renovations and 55% for new construction.

    Public Advocates recommended using assessed property value per student, which it says is the most important variable when measuring capacity to raise local money to modernize schools, as the yardstick to determine the size of districts’ state match.

    The bill creates a point system for rewarding extra money that emphasizes the percentage of low-income students, foster children, and English learners in a district. Affeldt said it likely will award Los Angeles Unified, with a high rate of poor students but above-average property tax wealth per student, extra undeserved state money.  

    The maximum 65% match won’t help property-poor districts, from 3,500-student Del Norte Unified in the rural north to 46,000-student San Bernardino City Unified, highlighted in Public Advocates’ complaint. Districts like these districts would need an 80% to 90% state match to raise enough money to fix critical conditions and add facilities that property-wealthy districts take for granted – but there cannot be enough funding for them as long as every district is guaranteed a 60% state match, Affleld said.

    Public Advocates will consult the residents and community organizations it represents in property-poor districts about what the next step will be, Affeldt said. “But what I can say is the Legislature could not have written a better roadmap to get sued.”

    The $10 billion bond will be divided as follows:

    $8.5 billion to K-12. Of that:

    • $3.3 billion for new construction, which will include seismic retrofits, climate measures, preschool and health facilities, and replacement of unrepairable school buildings at least 75 years old; 
    • $4 billion for modernization, which would include replacing portables at least 20 years old and $115 million carved out for the lead in water abatement;
    • $600 million for qualifying charter schools;
    • $600 million for career technical education facilities.

    $1.5 billion for community colleges.

    The $8.5 billion will cover only a portion of districts’ needs, and more than $3 billion may already be spoken for. The State Allocations Board keeps a list of approved projects that have not received funding. As with past state construction bonds, the bill would put these projects at the front of a new line; they’d get first dibs on the new money.

    Funding for the state bond will be distributed, as in the past, on a first-come, first-served basis for those districts that can navigate the complex application process. Here, too, critics say favors large districts, which have full-time facilities staff who are well-versed in the system, and small property-wealthy districts that can afford consultants.

    The authors of AB 247 have included two provisions to mitigate this. It will send the California Department of Education $5 million to provide technical expertise for completing applications for priority schools in small districts — those with fewer than 2,500 students with low assessed value per student and high numbers of low-income students.

    Additionally, the bill calls for setting aside 10% of the new construction and modernization money for small districts and front them a piece of their expected award for grant management. However, the set-aside applies to all small districts, including property-wealthy districts that could consume a big share of the 10% total.

    In another nod to fairness, the bond will expand financial hardship assistance in which the state covers the full cost of projects for districts too small to issue a bond; since 1998, these districts have received about 3% of state bond money. Eligibility would increase from a maximum of $5 million in bonding capacity to $15 million.

    California has no regular or consistent method of helping with school facilities. Since 1998, when the current formula for sharing state bond proceeds took effect, voters have approved $54 billion in bonding. A string of successful bond approvals was broken in 2020 when voters defeated a proposed $15 billion bond measure, which, by bad luck of the draw, was Proposition 13. Voters may have confused it with the anti-tax measure of the same number in 1978.

    Prop. 13 would have given CSU and UC $4 billion of the total. A bill competing with AB 247 would have, too. Weeks of negotiations settled with a smaller bond and no money for the universities. And that cleared the way for a separate $10 billion non-education bond that will appear on the Nov. 5 ballot. It will focus on climate change, with funding to shore up defenses against wildfires, floods, and rising sea levels.





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  • A hearing, a unanimous vote and a preview of litigation over a school construction bond

    A hearing, a unanimous vote and a preview of litigation over a school construction bond


    Oakland Unified recently completed construction of new academic buildings at Fremont High with funding from a previous bond measure.

    Courtesy of Oakland Unified

     A Senate Education Committee hearing Monday produced a unanimous vote in support of a $10 billion school construction bond initiative for the Nov. 5 statewide ballot. It also provided a preview of what likely will be the arguments over an anticipated lawsuit challenging how the state shares funding from state bonds with school districts.

    The public interest law firm Public Advocates charges that the bond that Californians will vote on will perpetuate a system that will award districts with the highest property values the most state money and harm students in low-wealth districts. It opposes Assembly Bill 247, providing the language for the ballot initiative, and has threatened to sue unless there are substantial changes to the funding arrangement.   

    “Our property, poor district space, face an uphill battle in struggling to raise matching funds due to low property values, often the result of decades of systemic discrimination and underinvestment in communities of color,” Gary Hardie, Jr., a school board member in Lynwood Unified, located east of Los Angeles, and a representative of the  California Association of Black School Educators, told the senators. “This just isn’t unfair; it’s morally unacceptable.” Public Advocates cited Lynwood’s plight in a complaint it filed with state officials in February.  

    The chairs of the Senate and Assembly Education Committees, both primary authors of the bill, disputed the characterizations, pointing to the bill’s changes to the allocation system, which they said make the funding system fairer.

    “It just breaks my heart to hear some of the over the top rhetoric that they’re (Public Advocates) are using,” said Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, responded. “If our goal is to serve the greatest good, the greatest number of socioeconomically disadvantaged students are in those districts that they’re calling wealthy like Los Angeles Unified, Oakland Unified, Long Beach Unified that lined up in support of this measure.”

    The bill would increase the state’s share of matching money by as much as 5 percentage points, to 65% for renovations and 55% for new construction. It would expand the number of “hardship” districts with property tax bases too small to issue bonds, qualifying for 100% state aid.

    Nicole Ochi, deputy managing attorney of Public Advocates, dismissed the changes as insignificant.  “They will do nothing to reverse the regressive distribution of state bonds, nor will the minor changes to the financial hardship program address the punitive and burdensome nature of that system,” she said. “A sliding scale of 60 to 65% is not a meaningful equity adjustment. This is equity in name and not substance.”

    Public Advocates proposed a much bigger sliding scale, with no guarantee under the current system that all districts receive at least 50% matching aid for new construction and 60% for modernization. Instead, districts with the lowest assessed property values per student, including Lynwood, San Bernardino City, and Fresno, would get a 95% match from the state, with a 5% local share; property-rich districts, like Palo Alto, Santa Clara, and Santa Barbara, would get a 5% state funding for a 95% local contribution.

    Ochi said Muratsuchi was conflating low-income demographics with low property values. Primarily low-income students attend Fresno, San Bernardino, Oakland, and Los Angeles. But Oakland and Los Angeles benefit from commercial and industrial wealth, with above-average assessed property per student. Their match from the state would decline slightly under Public Advocates’ proposal.

    Sen. Josh Newman, D-Fullerton, chair of Senate Education, countered the assertion by Public Advocates that the widely supported school facility program, created in 1998, is unconstitutional. “The program’s framework is built on equity and fairness and, over time, it has evolved. It’s been updated to better serve California’s diverse school districts,” he said.

    He said the revised program’s “balanced approach provides additional support to high-need districts while maintaining a sustainable and broadly supported funding model statewide.”

    The committee voted 7-0 to back the bill, which the full Senate and Assembly are expected to pass on Wednesday. Public Advocates has yet to decide its next move, but it said nothing in the latest bond proposal has led it to change its position. 

    The article was clarified on July 5 to make it clear Sen. Josh. Newsom disagrees with the assertion that the school facility program’s funding formula is unconstitutional.





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  • LAUSD board votes to add $9 billion school construction bond to November ballot 

    LAUSD board votes to add $9 billion school construction bond to November ballot 


    LAUSD’s Nueva Vista Elementary School in Bell.

    Photo Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales

    Voters in November will decide whether to give the Los Angeles Unified School District $9 billion in bond money to upgrade and improve school facilities, the school board decided unanimously Wednesday. 

    The bond is the largest ever put on the ballot by Los Angeles Unified and is just shy of a statewide school bond measure for $10 billion that will also be on the November ballot. For LAUSD’s bond measure to pass, at least 55% of voters will need to vote in favor — which would lead to an uptick in property taxes by roughly $25.04 for every $100,000 of assessed value, according to a district estimate.

    District officials stated that the money is critical, and its schools’ needs urgent. 

    “We have seen schools that are built as Taj Mahals, with the latest and greatest technology, with beautiful green spaces, with outdoor classrooms, with stunning athletic facilities,” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said Wednesday. “Then you drive down the road one mile, and you see a completely different world that I cannot explain, and frankly, I cannot accept.” 

    More than 60% of LAUSD campuses are at least a half-century old, according to a board report. And schools across the district have more than $80 billion “of unfunded school facility and technology needs.”

    Meanwhile, the costs of construction continue to grow — and have soared by 36% in the past four years, according to the report. 

    If passed, the $9 billion in bond money would help with efforts, including: 

    • Ensuring schools have adequate safety features and are seismically sound 
    • Modernizing campuses in-keeping with “21st century learning”
    • Improving disability access 
    • Reducing discrepancies across older and newer schools 
    • Expanding outdoor spaces, transitioning to a new food service model and improving energy efficiency

    According to district materials, roughly “525 school buildings may need to be retrofitted, modernized, or replaced for earthquake safety.” 

    Amid widespread support at Wednesday’s meeting, Michael Hamner, the chair of LAUSD’s Bond Oversight Committee, said the district did not involve his committee enough in the bond’s development. 

    “While we understand the district’s infrastructure needs are greater than the pool of resources currently available to fund them, the process by which this bond measure was developed and put forward, without consultation of key stakeholders groups such as ourselves — and therefore outside public view — prevents us from providing any meaningful comment,” he said Wednesday. 

    In response, Carvalho stated that while the process of moving forward with this bond was condensed, the district will “not spare any opportunity” to consider the views of various stakeholders. 

    Amidst a declining district enrollment, some have also claimed the district should wait to move forward with a bond measure until they have a better understanding of their needs — especially as LAUSD is relying on taxpayers’ money. 

    Carvalho doubled down, however, on the project’s urgency. 

    He said that regardless of potential changes to enrollment and square footage, the district’s  “critical need for facilities improvement will still be by far an excess of what we currently have and what we will have in the near future.” 

    According to school board member Rocio Rivas, improved facilities are associated with better academic outcomes, improved attendance and better mental health among students.  

    “Kids know when they have not the best — they don’t have it as good,” Board President Jackie Goldberg said Wednesday. “And they do feel, somehow or another, that maybe [they’re] just not worth as much.” 





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  • A guide to what a $10 billion construction bond on the ballot could mean for your school

    A guide to what a $10 billion construction bond on the ballot could mean for your school


    West Contra Costa Unified’s Stege Elementary School in Richmond.

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    More than 1 in 4 school districts are asking local voters to approve a record $39 billion in school construction bonds on the Nov. 5 ballot. Those that pass will jockey for some of the $10 billion in matching state funding that Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature are asking voters to approve by passing Proposition 2.

    The facility needs of districts are huge and growing, even as the state’s overall enrollment is projected to decline over the next two decades.

    Decades-old “portable” classrooms are falling apart; many air conditioners are malfunctioning, and classrooms without them are sweltering. Roofs leak, plumbing is corroding, wiring is fraying. 

    Parents worry about open access to insecure campuses. Schools lack room for new transitional kindergarten classes and plans for climate-resilient, energy-efficient buildings. Increasingly popular career and vocational education programs need up-to-date spaces.

    Districts’ priorities will vary, and so will their capacity to pay for them. As in the past, districts with high property values, which often correlate to higher-than-average incomes of homeowners, will have a leg up on their property-poor neighbors in terms of what they can ask their taxpayers to approve. Some districts will check off items on their wish list; other districts will resort to triage, fixing what’s most falling apart.

    In March 2020, amid first reports of a new pandemic on the horizon, statewide voters defeated a state construction bond with an unlucky ballot number. As a result, the state fell further behind in helping districts repair and rebuild school facilities.

    “The defeat of Proposition 13 in 2020 and the pandemic made local districts more hesitant to put bonds on the ballot in 2022, so there is a lot of pent-up need,” said Sara Hinkley, California program manager for the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley, which has extensively analyzed facilities needs in the state. 

    “The number of bond measures and the total amount reflect the aging and deferred maintenance of California schools, as well as the increasing urgency of HVAC and schoolyard upgrades to grapple with extreme heat.”

    The center estimates that 85% of classrooms in California are more than 25 years old; 30% are between 50 and 70 years old, and about 10% are 70 years old or older.

    Proposition 2 won’t significantly reform a first-come, first-served funding system if it passes, but it will clear out a backlog of unfunded school projects and partially replenish a state-building fund that has run dry.

    With so much on the ballot competing for attention, Proposition 2 may escape many voters’ attention. Here are answers to questions that should help you fill out your ballot.  

    What’s on the ballot this year?

    School districts have placed 252 bond proposals to raise $39.3 billion; 15 community college districts are asking voters to pass $10.6 billion worth of bonds, for a total of 267 proposed bonds valued at $49.9 billion. They range from a proposed $9 billion bond issue in Los Angeles, the state’s largest district, to $3 million sought by Pleasant View Elementary School District for repairs to its only school in Porterville.

    How is school construction funded?

    Unlike school districts’ operating money, which mostly comes from the state’s general fund, school construction and repairs remain largely a local responsibility, paid for by bonds funded by property taxes. Over the past 20 years, voters approved $181 billion in local bonds for public school and community college facility projects, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.  

    That compares with $31.8 billion over the same period in state facilities bonds passed for school district and community college construction, plus $4.6 billion from the general fund that Gov. Gavin Newsom directed toward school construction. Altogether, the state has chosen to bear only 17% — one-sixth — of the total costs of school construction since 2001.

    Bonds are essentially loans that are paid back, commonly over 25 or 30 years, with interest. In the past 10 years, interest rates have ranged from about 2% to nearly 5% and now are coming down again. The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates it would cost the general fund about $500 million annually for 35 years to pay back Proposition 2’s principal and interest.

    What does it take to pass a bond?

    The passage of a local bond requires a 55% approval rate. Despite the higher threshold than a simple majority, voters have approved 80% of local bonds on the ballot since 2001, according to CaliforniaFinance.com. The exception was in 2020, when voters defeated about half of local bonds, along with Proposition 13. The passage rate bounced back in 2022 to 72% — perhaps a good omen for proposals on Nov. 5 . 

    It takes only a 50% majority to pass a state construction bond. A voter survey in September by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 54% of likely voters said they would vote yes on Proposition 2, with 44% voting no.

    The bulk of state funding for school and community college construction came in the early 2000s, during fast-growing enrollment and boom years for the state economy. However, the state issued no state bonds for a decade after 2006. The 2016 bond, Proposition 51, the last that voters approved, allocated $7 billion for K-12 and $2 billion for the state’s 115 community colleges. All of that funding has been distributed. 

    Are there limits to how much districts can tax property owners for school bonds?

    Yes. Property taxes from school construction are capped at $60 per $100,000 of assessed valuation for unified districts, $30 per $100,000 for elementary or high school districts, and $25 per $100,000 for community college districts. A person whose home assessed value is at $400,000 (often significantly less than the market value) could pay up to $240 in annual property taxes in a unified district to pay off bonds’ principal and interest. Districts will stretch out the timeline for projects to stay under the limit.

    How will Proposition 2 be divvied up?

    The $10 billion will split:

    • $1.5 billion for community colleges
    • $8.5 billion for TK-12 districts, allocated as follows:
      • $4 billion for repairs, replacement of portables at least 20 years old, and other modernization work
      • $3.3 billion for new construction
      • $600 million for facilities for career and technical education programs
      • $600 million for facilities for charter schools
      • $115 million set aside to remove lead in school water

    Will all of this money go toward new projects?

    No. 

    Unfunded projects left over from Prop. 51 in 2016 that are deemed eligible for funding will go to the front of the line. That’s how the system worked in the past when there wasn’t enough money to go around, and the Legislature applied the same language to Prop. 2. The rationale is that districts spent time and money hiring architects and engineers and drawing up plans, and shouldn’t be penalized for efforts done in good faith.

    Those existing projects could consume half of the $8.5 billion for TK-12 funding. As of Aug. 31, the Office of Public Instruction, which tracks projects for funding, reported 1,000 school projects requesting $3.9 billion were already in line, with requests dating back to 2022. These break down to 812 modernization projects potentially eligible for $2.6 billion and 189 new construction projects eligible for $1.3 billion. The deadline for school districts to apply is Oct. 31, so the list may yet grow. 

    The Office of Public Construction cautioned that although the districts have filed paperwork, they have not been evaluated and approved for funding by the State Allocation Board under the rules in effect for Proposition 51. Some may have been built with local funding and are waiting for a state match.

    With $40 billion in local projects on the ballot and probably a net of $4 billion available for modernization and new construction, there likely will not be enough to fund more than a portion, leading to the establishment of a new list of unfunded projects.

    How does the match work?

    The state awards matching money to districts to defray the qualifying cost of individual school projects; it does not provide a lump sum award for all of the districts’ requests.  The state pays a uniform amount per student based on a school’s enrollment. Districts with growing enrollment, buildings over 75 years old, and a shortage of space can receive funding for new construction. 

    As with past state bonds, the state will split the cost of new construction; the state will contribute a higher match for modernization projects — 60% by the state and 40% by the district.

    A new feature in Proposition 2 will provide a slightly larger state match — up to an additional 5 percentage points on a sliding scale system to districts with both high rates of low-income students, foster children and English learners, and, to a lesser extent, with a small bonding capacity per student, another measure of ability to issue construction bonds. Low-income districts like Fresno Unified and Los Angeles Unified will be eligible for 65% state assistance for renovations and 55% for new construction, lowering their share to 35% and 45%, respectively.

    Is the formula fair?

    Analyses by the Public Policy Institute of California and the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley have concluded that the current system favors property-wealthy districts. Property-poor districts serving low-income families can’t afford bonds to qualify for state modernization subsidies to repair and upgrade schools. 

    The center’s data showed that the quintile of districts with the lowest assessed property value — those with a median of $798,000 of assessed value per student — received $2,970 per student in state modernization funding from 2000 to 2023, while the districts in the highest quintile, where the median assessed property value was $2.3 million per student, received $7,910 per student — more than two-and-a-half times as much. 

    Another factor is that matching money is distributed first-come, first-served, which favors large districts and small property-wealthy districts with an in-house staff of architects and project managers adept at navigating complex funding requirements.

    Does Proposition 2 address these complaints?

    To an extent, yes.

    • Proposition 2 would dedicate 10% of new funding for modernization and new construction to small districts, defined as those with fewer than 2,501 students. First-come, first-served wouldn’t apply to them.
    • Proposition 2 would expand financial hardship assistance in which the state pays for the total cost of projects in districts whose tax bases are too low to issue a bond. Eligibility would triple the threshold for hardship aid from a maximum of $5 million to $15 million in total assessed value; additional dozens of mostly rural districts would become eligible. Some have never issued a bond to fix schools that urgently need attention. Since 1998, about 3% of state bond money has been spent on hardship aid.
    • The higher state match for districts with large proportions of low-income students and English learners is a step toward addressing inequalities. However, critics led by the public interest law firm Public Advocates charge that it does not go far enough and uses flawed measures. Districts like 3,500-student Del Norte in the far north of the state  and 46,000-student San Bernardino Unified in Southern California would need an 80% to 90% state match to raise enough money to fix critical conditions and add facilities that property-wealthy districts take for granted, they argue.

    What else is new in Proposition 2?

    The bond will allow districts to seek a supplemental grant to construct or renovate transitional kindergarten classrooms and build gyms, all-purpose rooms, or kitchens in schools that lack them.

    Districts must write an overall plan documenting the age and uses of all facilities when submitting a proposal for Prop. 2 funding. The lack of data has made it difficult to determine building needs statewide.

    What would happen if Proposition 2 is defeated?

    In the last 30 years, voters have nixed state construction bonds twice, but never twice in a row. If voters do that next month, the unmet building needs of districts struggling to address them will mount. The price to fix them will rise, forcing difficult choices on how to scale back and reorder priorities.

    The $9 billion bond issue passed in 2016 would cost $11.8 billion to cover the same work in 2024, 31% more, according to a U.S. inflation calculator. A $10 billion bond passed in 2002 would require $17.5 billon in funding today.

    The escalation in materials and labor costs since the pandemic may continue to soar — or maybe not. Voters on Prop. 2 will have to decide whether to take that gamble.

    “We believe that voters will understand the value of making the critical repairs and classroom upgrades that our students need and deserve,“ said Rebekah Kalleen, legislative advocate for the Coalition for Adequate School Housing or CASH, the lobby representing school districts and school construction contractors campaigning for Prop. 2.





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  • California voters say yes to $10 billion school construction bond

    California voters say yes to $10 billion school construction bond


    A student sits in the hallway at San Juan Unified’s El Camino Fundamental High School in Sacramento.

    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    This story was updated to include additional information on community college projects.

    Californians on Tuesday decisively passed a $10 billion initiative to support construction projects by TK-12 schools and community colleges. The victory of Proposition 2 will authorize the first state bond for school construction since 2016 and replenish state funding that had run dry.

    With initial results from all precincts, 56.8% of voters backed the bond measure, and 43.2% opposed it. Still to be counted are mail-in ballots not yet received and provisional ballots. Support for the bond broke 60% in Los Angeles, Alpine, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Mendocino, Alameda, Yolo, Marin and San Mateo counties. Only counties in the state’s far north opposed it.

    Proposition 2 was one of two $10 billion state bonds on the ballot; the other was Proposition 4 for funding efforts to abate the impact of climate change. Proposition 2 supporters had worried that voters might choose one over the other, but both passed easily.

    “What has been clear is that people support it when they understand what Proposition 2 will do and its impact on schools,” said Molly Weedn, spokesperson for a pro-Proposition 2 campaign. “People are seeing the need in real time. When you have a leaky roof, it only gets leakier.”

    The campaign, organized by the Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH), representing school districts and school construction interests that underwrote the effort, had not yet issued a statement Wednesday.

    Even as enrollment in most districts is projected to continue to fall over the next decade, the need for unattended repairs and replacement of aging portable classrooms and buildings has mushroomed. The Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley estimates that 85% of classrooms in California are more than 25 years old; 30% are between 50 and 70 years old, and about 10% are 70 years old or older. 

    Climate change has exposed more of the state to unprecedented levels of heat and unhealthy air and underscored the need to replace aging or defective heating and cooling systems.  

    The last state bond proposal, in March 2020, coincided with the emergence of Covid-19; anxiety over the virus contributed to its defeat as well as a majority of local districts’ construction bonds. Districts on the rebound from the pandemic were reluctant to ask voters to pass bonds in 2022.

    Reflecting a suppressed demand for addressing facilities, a record 252 school districts asked voters on Tuesday to pass local construction bonds totaling $40 billion; an additional 13 community colleges proposed bonds totaling $10.6 billion. Thus, the demand for state help will far exceed the new funding.

    Proposition 2, funded by the state’s general fund, needed a simple majority of voters to pass while local school bonds, which require increases in property taxes, require a 55% majority approval. A quick look at some of the larger proposals indicated voters were largely supportive, passing a $9 billion bond in Los Angeles Unified, a $900 million bond in Pasadena Unified and a $1.15 billion bond in San Jose Unified for upgrading facilities, with $283 set aside for housing for staff.

    The portion of state funding for school districts will be distributed to projects on a matching basis, with the state contributing 50% of the eligible funding for new construction and 60% of the cost for renovations.

    An estimated $3 billion in unfunded school projects from the 2016 bond measure, Proposition 55, will get first dibs at Proposition 2’s new construction and modernization money under the existing rules. Some of these projects have already been completed and will receive the funding retroactively. The rationale is that districts undertook the projects with the expectation that they would eventually receive state aid.

    Once Proposition 2 runs out of money, a new line of unfunded projects will be formed for the next state bond. Interest and the principal for Proposition 2 will be repaid from the state’s general fund, at an estimated cost of $500 million per year for 35 years, according to an analysis by the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

    How money will be spent

    The $10 billion will split as follows:

    • $1.5 billion for community colleges
    • $8.5 billion for TK-12 districts, allocated as follows:
      • $4 billion for repairs, replacement of portables at least 20 years old, and other modernization work
      • $3.3 billion for new construction
      • $600 million for facilities for career and technical education programs
      • $600 million for facilities for charter schools
      • $115 million to remove lead from school drinking water

    The portion of Proposition 2 for community colleges will help renovate existing buildings, construct new classrooms and even replace sewage lines. The chancellor’s office earlier this year already approved 27 projects — totaling about $709 million — that will be covered by the bond measure in a first round of funding. They include projects across the state, from Shasta College in the north to Imperial Valley College near the Mexico border.

    Across the college system, with 115 brick-and-mortar community colleges, more than half of the buildings were built more than 40 years ago, said Hoang Nguyen, director of facilities for the system. 

    “It’s not like we’re sitting on newer facilities or anything like that. Our campuses are older,” he said. “So this proposition would be of great help.”

    The state’s largest district, the Los Angeles Community College District, got approval for four projects in the first round. That includes a new building to house Los Angeles Trade-Tech’s automotive technology, diesel technology and rail systems technology programs, as well as a new kinesiology building at Los Angeles City College. There will also be sewer replacement at Los Angeles Valley and Pierce colleges.

    “We’d like to think that our students, if they’re learning in these beautiful new buildings, will feel motivated to complete their training, get their certificates and get an education,” said Leigh Sata, the district’s chief facilities officer.

    The portion for TK-12 will set aside 10% of new funding for modernization and new construction for small districts, defined as those with fewer than 2,501 students. It will also expand financial hardship assistance in tiny districts whose tax bases are too low to issue a bond. The state will pick up the full tab for those districts.

    The bond will also allow districts to seek supplemental money to build gyms, all-purpose rooms, or kitchens in schools that lack them. But, contrary to the wishes of early education advocates, it won’t dedicate funding to one of the most pressing needs that districts face: adding more classrooms or renovating existing space for transitional kindergarten students.

    Except for the set-aside for small districts, Proposition 2 will continue allotting matching money on a first-come, first-served basis, which favors large districts and small, property-wealthy districts with an in-house staff of architects and project managers adept at navigating complex funding requirements.

    It also won’t significantly provide a bigger state match for districts with low property values; many lack a large enough tax base to issue bonds to meet basic building needs. Data from the Center for Cities + Schools at UC Berkeley shows that property-wealthy districts, with more taxable property per student, have received a disproportionately higher share of matching state funding over the past 25 years.

    One of the system’s outspoken critics is the nonprofit public interest law firm Public Advocates. Its managing partner, John Affeldt, said Wednesday that in passing Proposition 2, “Voters recognized the reality that so many facilities need significant modernization. But I don’t think voters are also aware of and approving the underlying distribution of the bond funds that send so many more dollars to high-wealth districts instead of low-wealth districts.

    “We’ll continue to be a voice to make sure the state creates a system that equitably treats all its students,” he said.

    EdSource reporter Thomas Peele contributed to the article.





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