Proposition 28 funding is being misused
In a triumph of hope over experience, this editorial board endorsed Proposition 28, the Arts and Music in Schools Funding Guarantee and Accountability Act, in 2022. We said the state's 6 million public school students in grades K-12, about 60% of whom are from low-income families, “deserve to have an enriched education that might otherwise be available only to students whose parents can pay for private instruction in the arts.”
Prop. 28 promised additional funding to every public school for arts and music instruction and programs. The measure required the state to provide an extra amount equal to 1% of the total Proposition 98 funding (typically around 40% of General Fund revenues) that K-12 schools received in the prior year. For the 2023-24 school year, the Prop. 28 funding was $938 million.
In January, this editorial board met with LAUSD school board member Tanya OrtizFranklin and asked her if there were any success stories in the nation’s second largest school district as a result of Proposition 28 providing almost a billion dollars statewide for arts and music education.
She couldn’t point to one. Ortiz-Franklin said there was “supplanting” of funding happening, though no one really wanted to call it “supplanting.”
But now Prop. 28 proponent Austin Beutner is calling it exactly that. In a March 25 letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and legislative leaders, Beutner wrote that “some school districts in California are willfully violating the law by using the new funds provided by Prop. 28 to replace existing spending for arts education at schools.”
Instead of “hiring about 15,000 additional teachers and aides,” Beutner wrote, “the funds would instead be used to pay for existing programs. This means millions of children will miss out on the arts education voters promised them.”
Prop. 28 required local educational agencies to certify annually that the funds are used
“to increase funding of arts education and not to supplant existing funding for those programs.”
Beutner’s letter asked state leaders to order school districts to submit to the California Department of Education, within 30 days, a certification that Prop. 28 funds have not been used to supplant existing spending, and a list of additional arts and music teachers employed in the current school year compared to the prior year.
The letter was also signed by officials of the powerful unions representing teachers as well as a Teamsters local. We’ll see how that goes. Although no one submitted an argument against Prop. 28 for the state Voter Information Guide, Lance Christensen, then a candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction, opposed the measure. In an October 2022 commentary for the California Globe, Christensen asserted, “There is more than enough money within the current state education budget to fund the arts, we just don’t allow local school districts to make budget choices to free up money for those programs.”
Christensen also expressed concern that a downturn in the economy might mean cuts to arts and music programs if the Legislature thought Prop. 28 funds could fill the gap. As lawmakers wrestle with a severe budget deficit, that warning may have been prescient.
But even without a downturn, Christensen argued, Prop. 28 would be just one more state mandate “to handcuff school districts.” It sure didn’t take the school districts long to pick the locks and escape.