The Educated Guess Commerical properties finagle out of property taxes

The Educated Guess

Commerical properties finagle out of property taxes

Posted in Adequacy suit, Revenue and taxes, Student spending

With state funding of K-12 schools stuck on empty for at least several more years, school districts and teachers unions are starting to sound the call for more local authority to raise taxes.
That’s not likely to happen, however, until the Legislature has the fortitude to confront the distortions caused by Proposition 13’s stranglehold on the state’s tax system. A new study by the California Tax Reform Association and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment adds evidence to begin that discussion.
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By John Fensterwald on May 10th, 2010

Governor, State Board to ACLU: We’re on your side

Posted in Adequacy suit, Equity issues, Tenure

The lawsuit against Los Angeles Unified and the state over seniority-based teacher layoffs and massive cuts to state education funding has taken some strange twists.
Both Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Board of Education – defendants in the case – are taking the position that they agree with the plaintiffs. Their message: Don’t sue us. We’re on the side of kids in low-income schools whose teachers have been handed pink slips in disproportionate numbers.
The latest jockeying – unusual but not unprecedented – may be a sign that an initial settlement is near. A court hearing into a preliminary injunction has been pushed back a week, until Tuesday, at the request of plaintiffs attorneys, in order to conduct negotiations with the defendants.
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By John Fensterwald on May 7th, 2010

Digital textbooks coming, quickly and surely