History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
A Wonderland formula funds California schools
- 01-20-2010
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By Dan Walters/Sacramento Bee
When Lewis Carroll's Alice tumbled down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, she was ensconced in a bizarre world where nothing was what it seemed. Anyone who ventures into California school finance enters a similarly confusing parallel universe, where day is night, black is white, up is down, and square is round, to pen a bit of doggerel. It centers on Proposition 98, a 1988 ballot measure purported to give schools a "fair share" of revenue. It's so complicated that its principal drafter, education consultant John Mockler, often joked – perhaps truthfully – that he deliberately made it obtuse so that stakeholders would hire him to interpret it, thereby allowing his children to attend expensive universities. (more...)
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