Public Advocates has no current position on Proposition 2, a bond measure that would borrow $10 billion to help modernize schools and support construction costs, but maintains a discriminatory system of funding that prioritizes higher wealth students and districts. We recognize the tremendous need for investment in our public school facilities, but remain concerned that this funding will not reach the low-income students of color in low-wealth districts that need it most.
Public Advocates opposed AB 247, the bill that created Proposition 2 for the November 2024 ballot. As we stated in our February 2024 demand letter to state leadership, the distribution of bond money would continue the inequitable, and in our view, unconstitutional school facility financing system that privileges the rich and disinvests in low-income communities of color. In our letter and subsequent materials to leadership we proposed more equitable solutions including but not limited to replacing the current universal matching system for modernization funds with a sliding scale and increasing supplemental hardship funding.
While we recognize the tremendous need for an education bond, we remain concerned about the inequitable distribution of these funds that continues to prioritize wealthier districts—and the students who live in those districts—over high needs districts even when you take the hardship program into account.
As study after study has demonstrated, over the past 25 years, California’s universal 60% match for modernization funds has delivered more than 4 times as much state bond funds per student to wealthy districts as low-wealth districts. This bill provided equity in name only and treats students differently based on the wealth of their community. By supporting such a bill that doubles down on maintaining a discriminatory system, our state leadership has sent a message to low-wealth communities from Del Norte to Salinas to Lynwood to San Bernardino that they do not care if students in these communities are educated in substandard facilities.
Given that we believe it maintains an unconstitutional structural flaw, Public Advocates cannot support Proposition 2. We are, however, also not taking a formal position in opposition to the Proposition given the tremendous, long-unaddressed need for additional capital support for facilities in California. We believe the voters should weigh these important considerations as they decide for themselves whether or not to support Proposition 2.
