PARCEL TAX MOVEMENT AND ARTS EDUCATION

Part of our ongoing guest blog series. Each month, Arts for LA featuresa blog post from a prominent member of the field to share theirthoughts and insights on current trends, advocacy and new legislative opportunities to rally behind.  

Over the last few months, several municipalities within LosAngeles County have successfully passed Parcel Taxes as a means to shore upfunding gaps in their school districts. This creative funding strategy isemerging as a new solution in these turbulent economic times. 

To clarify: a Parcel Tax is a motion to increase the tax rateon a parcel of land or property (it is not a specific tax on mailing packagesor shipping parcels, as I originally thought).  These tax measures affectpeople like homeowners, real estate developers and business property ownersonly.  It takes 66% of the votes to pass a Parcel Tax increase.  The proposedtax rate increase is relatively small, somewhere between .5% and 1.5%, but thenumbers add up. Depending on the size and value of the parcel, this tax can bequite expensive to the homeowner or business owner, who may already be taxed ata higher income rate.  It is alsoimportant to note that, as a national average, only 20% of homeowners in amunicipality have school-aged students. Yet the strength of the schools is oneof the primary criteria people use to determine whether they should move into agiven neighborhood.

Municipalities that have recently passed ParcelTaxes include South Pasadena, Santa Monica-Malibu and Palos VerdesPeninsula. LAUSD is moving toward proposing one. 

There is another side to the Parcel Tax measure that you needto know about.

In California, school districts in more affluent communitiesare facing a double whammy in this economic downturn. Their property values arefalling at a faster rate than others, leading to a significant drop in taxrevenues. Secondly, because they have fewer students eligible to qualify forfree and reduced-price lunch, they significantly receive even less Title IFederal funding than their counterparts. Make no mistake about it -  times are tough all around. Even the morewealthy districts are having a hard time funding arts education. The list of districts abovemay indicate that the more suburban-esque communities in Los Angeles County areresorting to a Parcel Tax. They can do this because they have a strong base ofhigh property values on which they can tax; districts with a lot of low incomehomes do not because their tax base is so low.

Two lingering reservations about Parcel Taxes remain unaddressed:

This creative funding solution may further separate thequality of schooling across districts based upon wealth. There are concernsabout whether a student's ability to have access to a quality, sequential,standards-based K-12 arts education will increasingly depend upon where thestudent lives. If this becomes the case, it will be unfortunate because theresearch shows that the arts help all students but it the gains are greatestfor disadvantaged students. Access to the arts is aneducational equity issue.  It's unknown whether we are moving thatdirection, but Arts for All plans on monitoring it closely.  

There are also questions about how the Parcel Tax wasmarketed.  Was advocacy for the measurebased primarily on the idea that arts and music will be cut? The CaliforniaTeachers Association, the largest teachers' union, did just that during the finalstages of the budget crisis. Of course the arts are a worthy cause, but how dowe hold people accountable that the new funds will be used as described in theads and messaging that got out the vote in the first place? The arts can't justbe a propaganda tool for more funding.

What do you think about the Parcel Tax?  Leave a comment below.

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Rebecca Borden, PhD is the Senior Implementation Manager for Arts for All.  Rebecca recently joined the Arts for All team atthe Los Angeles County Arts Commission. She comes to LosAngeles from WashingtonDC where she worked nationally toadvance the arts and arts education at the American Architectural Foundation, theArts Education Partnership and Americans for the Arts. A former high schoolteacher, Rebecca received her Masters and Doctorate in Education from the University of Virginia.

In September 2002, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors adopted Arts for All: Los Angeles County Blueprint for Arts Education, a strategic plan to restore arts education - in dance, music, theatre,and the visual arts - to the 1.7 million students in Los AngelesCounty's 81 school districts. Arts for Allprovides a series of policy changes and educational initiatives tocreate systemic change and institutionalize sequential, K-12 artseducation in Los Angeles County school districts, based on the Visual and Performing Arts Standards for California Public Schools.