"Two dynastic families jousted bloodily for 30 years during the 15th century for control of the English throne, a struggle that historians call the War of the Roses.
California's version is the three-decade-long (and counting) struggle between rival factions over public education, the state's most expensive and arguably most important program.
Proposition 13, passed in 1978, shifted financial responsibility for schools to the state while a wave of immigration and massive changes in the economy immensely complicated what occurred in the classroom. As educational achievement – indicated by such measures as academic test scores and high school dropout rates – declined, political war erupted over whether more money or structural reform was the antidote."
