A reform signed into law last month gives families the ability to withdraw their child from an underperforming school and re-enroll him in any school across the state.
Yet, recent developments in Southern California raise concerns about whether that privilege could get derailed. The culprit? Property taxes.
Last month, according to the LA Times, the Beverly Hills Unified School District voted to kick out more than 400 students whose families don't live in the district.
The move, school leaders said, came because the district is transitioning to a new financing formula that calls for operations to be funded by local property tax revenues and not state funding.
Most of the state's approximately 1,000 school districts receive a combination of state and local taxes to finance school operations. Each district is given a limit on how much revenue they can receive based upon a complex formula created by the state.
School districts – mainly wealthier ones – are blocked by law from receiving state tax aid when their property taxes exceed these limits. Those districts, which are defined as basic-aid or community-funded districts, must then use their own revenues to fund their schools.
Some parents and board members are increasingly arguing that it is unfair to spend scarce funding on those who don't pay taxes in the area. According to a USA Today story on the issue:
Beverly Hills board Vice President Lisa Korbatov said it's an issue of fairness to residents of the exclusive city because their money will now be used to fund their schools, and they shouldn't have to pay for outsiders. "People make sacrifices to move in here," she said. "We're saying to the permit students, 'Please move in; be our neighbors."
But opponents say kicking out the students, some of whom have attended Beverly Hills since kindergarten, is unfair. "The human consequences are more important to me than the financial consequences," said board member Myra Lurie. "It's a mean-spirited and somewhat elitist point of view than our schools are for us and us only."
Education experts say the drama in Beverly Hills underscores that education is being affected by the economic crisis. "They're taking action to protect their own," said John Rogers, co-director of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access. "It's a troubling but logical response.
The controversy is certain to complicate the efforts of others seeking to go outside their area to attend school.
Dennis Meyers, assistant executive director of the California Association of School Business Officials, told California Watch that self-financing districts would likely begin to enact strict admission standards for future out-of district students.
"These are really gut-wrenching decisions," Meyers said. "I can see these districts scrutizing those applications very, very carefully."
Meyers said he was unaware of any proposals in front of the state Legislature to address the issue.There were 98 basic-aid school districts during the 2008-2009 school year, according to California Department of Education data. Historically, the state usually has 60 to 80 schools in that category, according to EdSource.
Irvine Unified School District in Orange County, ended out-of-district enrollments last year, after becoming community-funded.
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