Ancillary #8: LAUSD And It’s Unfair Funding

Schools in lower income neighborhoods are at an extreme disadvantage in terms of funding's for school and student academics. The cause of this, according to an article written by The Guardian, “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.” This is important because it changed the amount of money districts can raise for schools, thus entirely cutting schools funding by nearly one third and forcing the state to try and make up not all but some of the funding. And obviously this affected every school in the district, but specifically this really hurt schools in lower income areas, because even before the the proposition was passed, schools in lower income areas were already at a disadvantage and underfunded, but implementing this prop slashed the fundings hugely, and with the state having to try and make up for the funding, it only did more harm than good. The reason that this proposition was passed in the first place was that, according to another article written by The Guardian, “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.” So at that time, they did not understand the full repercussions of what this proposition could possibly bring to lower income areas and the schools surrounding them. It was all just for some tax cuts on their properties but the legacy that proposition will leave behind would go on to haunt kids in South Central Los Angeles, Compton, East Los Angeles and any other schools in LAUSD in lower income neighborhoods. But obviously at the time, they did not know the impact and the events that would happen after this historic proposition was passed, nobody knew.

Even schools in more affluent neighborhoods decided that that slash in funding was the last straw for them, “‘If I can’t buy better education than my neighbors, why am I paying all these property taxes?” (Imazeki). So they decided to move their kids out and into private schools with way better funding. So the events after proposition 13 was passed heavily affected schools in lower income neighborhoods and even before that, the inequality in funding was huge.