The latest budget dance reveals, once again, that California's education finance system is a mess. It needs an overhaul.
For more than two decades, after adjusting for California's high cost of living, the state has ranked in the bottom 10 in many school spending categories. Yet the state continues with the same convoluted, complicated formulas that fail to match needs and academic performance.
One such formula is Proposition 98, passed narrowly by voters in 1988. That took education, the largest part of the state budget, out of the Legislature's hands and wrote it into the California Constitution. While the aim was to guarantee a consistent and predictable share of state revenues for schools, that hasn't happened.
To read the complete editorial, visit sacbee.com.