Equalizing of School Funding

Twelve years have passed since the Serrano vs. Priest case was decided by the Supreme Court, directing that per-student funding be equalized for all California school districts.

As The Times reported Sept. 4, the best-funded unified district in Orange County still has per-student funding over 16% more than the least-funded. To put this in perspective, a classroom in Los Alamitos has over $13,800 more to spend per year than one in Santa Ana. No doubt the people who run the Santa Ana district could make valuable use of another $13,800 per classroom.

The difference was only $9,000 per classroom when I wrote my first angry letter to our elected representatives on this subject over six years ago, about the time the deadline imposed by the Supreme Court in Serrano vs. Priest expired. The state of California has still not taken the necessary actions to implement the decision, or to meet the requirements of simple fairness in funding schools for our children.

For my own children, any change will come too late. My youngest will graduate from the Placentia district with the class of 1990, and for the entire 15 years that she and her older sister attended here, the district will have been funded below the state average. During part of that time, it was the district with the lowest per-student funding in Orange County.

What lessons about respect for the law are we teaching our children when the state government shows no sign of complying with the decisions of the Supreme Court?

MICHAEL E. UTT

Placentia