There are 10 California ballot measures up for vote in November on a wide range of issues, so as we hit back-to-school season it’s also time to study up on the propositions. This week we have a lesson on Proposition 2, a new education bond measure that would authorize the state to borrow $10 billion to build and modernize K-12 and community college campuses.
The bond would dedicate $8.5 billion to K-12 districts. That includes $3.3 billion to build new schools, $4 billion to modernize existing campuses, $600 million for career technical education and another $600 million for charter schools. The remaining $1.5 billion would pay for upgrades to community colleges.
The money could be used to replace school buildings that are at least 75 years old, are in military installations, or part of small school districts. It could also be used for certain health and safety measures, including seismic safety improvements and testing and fixing drinking water systems contaminated with lead. And it could be spent to expand broadband access on campuses.
Why it’s needed: Although education makes up the lion’s share of state general fund spending, that primarily covers things like salaries and operations. The way the state funding system works, school and college districts have to come up with their own money for construction and facilities upgrades through local bond measures, but matching state bond funds can help those dollars go farther.
That means a school district can pass its own bond and then leverage that money to get additional state dollars.
California already spent most of the $9 billion raised through its last statewide school bond, passed in 2016, and a subsequent $15 billion statewide school bond in 2020 failed.
Most California schools are over a quarter century old, while 30 percent are more than half a century old and 10 percent are 70 years or older, the bill states. It cites research showing that school conditions are linked to student outcomes, so students in clean, well-maintained classrooms can score 5 to 17 percent higher on tests than their peers in dilapidated buildings.
San Diego County has its share of aging campuses. A few years ago I reported on some of those schools in Oceanside Unified School District, where the school board chose to relocate students from one campus marred by sinkholes to another site with its own problems, including flooding, mold, broken bathroom fixtures, rusted railings and insect infestations, among others.
For 12 years, San Diego County’s tiny, rural Warner Unified School District has had unsafe levels of arsenic in its drinking water, forcing the school to buy bottled water instead, Kristen Taketa with the San Diego Union-Tribune reported recently.
California schools face “critical facility needs such as leaking roofs and unsafe structures, classrooms without internet access, lead pipes, outdated HVAC systems, shortage of transitional kindergarten and early childhood education facilities, and extreme heat conditions,” said Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, co-author of the ballot measure legislation and chair of the Assembly Education Committee.
Pros and cons: All of San Diego’s assembly members voted in favor of floating the bond measure in November, and San Diego Unified School District, San Diego Community College District and Palomar Community College District voiced support.
But La Mesa-Spring Valley School District and some small districts in neighboring Imperial County and other parts of the state weighed in against it.
Small, rural and low-income districts typically don’t have the property tax base to support expensive school construction projects. Without local dollars, they’re at a disadvantage competing against bigger, urban districts for state matching funds, opponents of the school bond argue.
Public Advocates, a public interest law firm, is demanding that the state revise its bond formula to make it more equitable. They say California should create a sliding scale for bond matches with a higher percentage of state dollars going to disadvantaged districts, add a supplemental hardship program to address the most urgent needs, and other reforms.
Meet the New Republican, Same as the Old Democrat
Yesterday Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones, R-San Diego, announced the newest member of the state Senate Republican Caucus, former Democratic Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil.
“It takes courage to stand up to the supermajority in California and Marie has what it takes,” Jones said in a statement.
Alvarado-Gil is a tough-on-crime Democrat who represents the eastern Central Valley. A CalMatters bio describes her as the “‘The Western Blue Dog’” due to stances on crime and fiscal policies that align her to the right of many of her Democratic peers.”
Switching sides while in office isn’t unheard of; we’ve seen it here in San Diego. Assemblymember Brian Maienschein, D-San Diego, left the Republican Party in 2019, citing differences with the Republican Party on labor, gun control and its leadership under former president Donald Trump.
Apocalypse Soon?
If you’re like me you might be having some jitters about the November election. It’s not just the horse-race nature of electoral politics or the wildly unpredictable plot twists of the past couple months.
What keeps me up at night is the possibility of political violence following election results.
It turns out one of the most trusted political scientists in San Diego, San Diego Mesa College Professor Emeritus Carl Luna, has the same worries. Which, to be honest, is not all that reassuring. But it’s good to know that experts are considering the worst case scenario.
Union-Tribune columnist Michael Smolens talked to Luna about his insights into dangers of the upcoming election and the political polarization fueling it. You can read that interview here.
Lots of other sources are also sounding the alarm. The Harvard Kennedy School published a report on political violence in America this week and the Council on Foreign Relations in April released a playbook on preventing violence around the election.
Return of the Pandas
With the presidential election approaching and the legislative session wrapping up, Gov. Gavin Newson was down in San Diego Thursday stumping for… pandas.
Yup, turns out Gavin’s got a soft spot for the cuddly-looking bears. He joined the President of the San Diego Zoo Alliance and Chinese officials in welcoming Yun Chuan and Xin Bao to the Zoo’s newly expanded Panda Ridge.
The Sacramento Report runs every Friday and is part of a partnership with CalMatters. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org.