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John Mockler
is the president of John Mockler and Associates, Inc., a consulting
firm in Sacramento. He is the former Executive Director of the California
State Board of Education and the Fromer Interim Secretary for Education
for the State of California.
• SERRANO V. PRIEST •
PROPOSITION 13
• LAWSUIT • IMMIGRATION
• PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS |
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"I
used to say we drove Chevies and ate cheddar and had pretty good
schools. And now we drive BMWs and eat brie and have little less
good quality public schools. It's a choice we've made within our
state."
"We
used to have after-school programs. A lot of clubs, a lot of participation.
And we had smaller high schools. Now, we have these huge high schools
and kids have less participation."
"
... the implementation of Serrano essentially took the value of
property tax revenues out of the local school debate and began the
push towards what later would be Proposition 13..."
"When
we passed Prop 13... we took all local power away. "
"You
go to places like Los Angeles or Santa Ana, and you have elementary
schools with three, four-thousand students, multi-track year-round.
It's like you're in Calcutta."
"It's
getting better. It's not good enough. It's still not as good as
it should be, but overall we're doing pretty well."
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JOHN
MERROW
Take us back to pre-Prop 13 and pre-Serrano. How did California do
vis-a-vis the rest of the country?
JOHN MOCKLER
California actually was quite generous to its schools in
the sixties and the fifties. Relative to our income, we spent
a little over five percent of all the money we earned on our schools.
So every time Mom and Dad earned a buck, they put 5.2 pennies into
the pot for public schools. We were in the top 10 schools on expenditures
per kid.
Since then, we've basically turned our back on schools, relative to
our income. I used to say we drove Chevies and ate cheddar and had
pretty good schools. And now we drive BMWs and eat brie and have little
less good quality public schools. It's a choice we've made within
our state.
JOHN MERROW
Chosen mediocrity.
JOHN MOCKLER
We've chosen mediocre public service, and more private money. We've
decided not to tax ourselves as much. In the state sense. And it's
a choice you get to make in our republic. I don't like the choice,
but it's a choice we get to make.
JOHN MERROW
But what's the evidence that the schools were better?
JOHN MOCKLER
If you actually go to look at, for example, the number of credentialed
adults that were in the typical high school in L.A., for example,
in 1955, it would be 30 percent more than you have now. You had more
teachers, more nurses, more counsellors for the kids than there are
now.
JOHN MERROW
What else was there more of?
JOHN MOCKLER
More stuff for kids after school. The high schools in California have
borne the brunt of our cuts. We've done class-size reduction for little
kids. But not for high school kids. We used to have after-school programs.
A lot of clubs, a lot of participation. And we had smaller high schools.
Now, we have these huge high schools and kids have less participation.
So, if you can't be in the drama club gang, then you're in another
kinda gang. Or if you can't be on the baseball team gang, there's
another kind of gang. So, we have a lot less stuff for adolescents
to do and less adults to interact with them. I think that's the biggest
problem we've come into.
SERRANO V. PRIEST
JOHN MERROW
Tell me about Serrano v. Priest.
JOHN MOCKLER
Well, the people that did Serrano - ACLU, Western Center on Law and
Poverty - were part of essentially a progressive movement. And they
thought they were bringing a suit which would help poor children,
relative to rich children. They gave the court data comparing Beverly
Hills, who had high wealth per student, to Baldwin Park, which had
low wealth per student. And that was the image the court had. But
what the court didn't have, and didn’t study well, was overall
in California. And overall in California, high wealth districts educated
the most poor kids. For example, San Francisco, Oakland, Richmond,
Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego - those were the high wealth districts,
And that is where 75 percent of all poor kids went to school. So the
court decision basically said, "Give those kids higher taxes
and less money for schools, and give the kids in Walnut Creek and
Orinda lower taxes and more money per student."
JOHN MERROW
So you see Serrano v. Priest, as misguided?
JOHN MOCKLER
I see it, like many mass interventions, as having unintended consequences
greater than any gain ever pursued.
JOHN MERROW
What were the consequences?
JOHN MOCKLER
One consequence was that it was the largest transfer of school funding
away from poor children towards relatively wealthy children. Another
consequence was that the implementation of Serrano essentially took
the value of property tax revenues out of the local school debate
and began the push towards what later would be Proposition
13, because, after all, the logic goes, if increased property
taxes don't go to the schools, why should we be for increased property
taxes?
JOHN MERROW
Explain why increased property taxes no longer went towards schools?
JOHN MOCKLER
Because we created a revenue limit. Each district got to spend so
much money per student and if their property tax revenue went up,
then the state took away state funding. If their property taxes went
down, the state backfilled. So, if you got more property tax revenue
in your school district, you just lost state money. So, you had net
zero.
JOHN MERROW
And this influenced the passing of Proposition 13?
JOHN MOCKLER
Yes. This period, '72 to '78, was a time of rapid increase in local
property tax revenues. And no other part of government had revenue
limits. So local revenues grew tremendously, state revenues grew immensely,
but school revenues did not. The public just said, "Well, gee,
our property taxes don't go to schools so why should we pay them?"
PROPOSITION 13
JOHN MERROW
Explain to me what was happening at the time of Proposition 13.
JOHN MOCKLER
The relative property values in California were skyrocketing. It was
a time of inflation. So, the public, because the property taxes were
accelerating so fast, wanted to put a stop to it. And the legislature
and the governor at the time made a slow response to stop this incredible
surge. And, so, the public just said, "Forget this. We'll do
it ourselves." And that's how you got Proposition 13.
JOHN MERROW
Proposition 13 passed - what happened next?
JOHN MOCKLER
Rather than to let local government feel the effect of these cuts,
the state decided to bail them out. So, now you had this new system
of very low local property tax, as a cause of Prop 13, with high state
income and sales tax. And so you had a much more unstable tax system
from then on. We've seen the ups and downs, including the current
one, which is caused by a high reliance on a very volatile tax source.
JOHN MERROW
People have said, "Well, Prop 13 had an unintended consequence
in centralizing authority here in Sacramento.
JOHN MOCKLER
Schools were centralized through the implementation of Serrano, to
start with. With Serrano, they basically took all financial decisions,
moved them to the state. Prop 13 sort of cemented that. When we passed
Prop 13, then we took all local power away.
LAWSUIT
JOHN MERROW
What's your opinion of the ACLU adequacy lawsuit?
JOHN MOCKLER
I find it ironic that the same people that created Serrano, which
created the fiscal system that they now don't like, are now brining
another lawsuit to change that system. But they make a very good point.
Kids should have qualified teachers. Kids should have clean, safe
facilities and kids should have instruction materials and paper and
pencils and stuff. The question becomes, should we have a totally
state system. They believe we should. Having seen what the state does
in my years in policy and politics, I think that would be a cure that's
worse than the disease that they've so noted.
IMMIGRATION
JOHN MERROW
How has immigration affected California schools?
JOHN MOCKLER
After Prop 13, you could not build local schools, because you had
no source of income. There's no way to build them, and, so, when more
kids came, there was no place to put them and we had these huge schools.
You go to places like Los Angeles or Santa Ana, and you have elementary
schools with three, four-thousand students, multi-track year-round.
It's like you're in Calcutta. It's astounding. Normally, immigration's
difficult to deal with, because you have different cultures and languages
and all things you have to adjust to. But without facilities, it makes
it really hard.
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS
JOHN MERROW
Should Proposition 13 be repealed?
JOHN MOCKLER
I wouldn't say outright repeal. I don't think that's within the politics
of the state, and probably shouldn't be. I think what you need to
do, and I think people are starting to talk about it, is this realignment
of tax structures, state and local. Property tax is a stable tax.
Even in this economic downturn, property taxes in the state are up
seven, eight percent, even though state general fund revenues are
down 10 billion, 12 billion. So asset taxes, city taxes, property
taxes, need to be a better share of revenue.
California spends almost more than any other state on state aid to
schools. But we have such low property tax that our expenditures are
less than other states. So by not having a local tax base, any volatility
in the state system makes the local system volatile. So I think what
you need to do is look at the whole tax structure. We used to spend,
let's say, five-and-a-half, five cents of our income on kids. Now
they're now giving us 3.3 cents. So two percentage points less of
their income go to schools. Well, one percent of personal income in
this state is $11.5 billion. So if the citizens of the state committed
to their schools the same percent of their income as they did when
Ronald Reagan was governor, we'd spend $23 billion more a year on
the schools.
That being said, the last four or five years before this last recession,
we made some progress. We moved from almost last in expenditures per
kid up to around 35th.
JOHN MERROW
Is there a risk that California will end with, in effect, two California
public school systems, one for poor and largely black and brown kids
and another for well-to-do, largely white kids?
JOHN MOCKLER
I think that risk is fairly low. Latino immigrants, if you go to the
second or third generation of kids, they do quite well in school.
Asian immigrants, with the exception of Hmongs and Cambodians, have
exceptional academic achievement. In the last five years, achievement
of English language learners has risen at about 30 percent faster
than the achievement as a whole. So there's some good stuff going
on that indicate we're getting closer to overcoming the problems.
JOHN MERROW
How do California schools stand relative to the rest of the country?
JOHN MOCKLER
Very well, I think. We spend less than average per kid. And we get
little better than average achievement, if you measure normative tests.
And we have substantially more kids at risk than other states. So
overall, we're getting a basic quality of education. It's getting
better. It's not good enough. It's still not as good as it should
be, but overall we're doing pretty well.
There are school districts out there that historically have not succeeded,
that are turning around. Because they're focused on standards, they're
training their teachers, they have an accountability system. They're
spending money to help teachers teach kids. And it's a wonderful thing.
JOHN MERROW
California is particularly vulnerable, it seems, to these economic
downturns.
JOHN MOCKLER
I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal that said 77,000 people,
during the high boom of corporate growth, paid something like $7 billion
in state income tax in California, and now they're paying zero. Because
their losses were so great. So, that's a volatility in the system.
We have low-asset taxes, low property taxes. And we have higher taxes
on income, and that's the most volatile. And so we have to change
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