Voters in Los Angeles yesterday turned down Measure EE, which would have raised $500 million yearly for schools. The measure required a 2/3 yes vote, but didn’t win a majority. It would have been funded mostly by taxes on commercial properties, and the LA Chamber of Commerce mounted a campaign to defeat it.
It would have funded smaller classes, nurses, social workers, librarians, arts and music.
What a crying shame.
If you care about the kids, you have to do right by them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Did the teachers’ union campaign vigorously for this commercial tax?
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Yes. UTLA was aggressively supporting it
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Many thanks for info. Not good. Seattle city council withdrew a progressive tax on mega-corporations to fund affordable housing when tech giants objected. Today’s NYT reported on rent control protests at the Capitol in Albany to force the new Gem majority there to pass all 9 bills protecting tenants whose advocates were noisily occupying the halls.
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The main reason EE failed so badly is that it was publicly supported by Superintendent-Wall Street Bro Austin Beutner. Nobody in L.A. likes anything he does. With good reason. Time for Beutner to go. If Measure EE had been unilaterally supported by teachers, it would have fared much better. Lesson hopefully learned.
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I could tell it was going to fail just by the chatter on my neighborhood Facebook group. Most people did not understand where the bulk of the money was coming from, but only that their own property tax would go up. Many pointed out the total lack of trust in LAUSD after the debacle of John Deasy and his I-pad catastrophe. Many thought that LAUSD is sucking the money for administrative costs, not realizing how underfunded the district is by the state. I heard the “what about the lottery money” that well informed people knew was a cam when they instituted it. And sadly, some people admitted they don’t want to pour their tax money into district that are primarily minority children. And the big realty companies, and the Chamber of Congress fought it tooth and nail with misleading scare tactics – your rents will skyrocket, your jobs will be in jeopardy. It was disheartening.
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It didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell to pass due to it being put on a June, single-issue ballot. Lead by Garcia, Melvoin and Beutner, the LAUSD school board decided to NOT back a measure that should have been placed on last year’s November ballot (when other, similar school measures actually passed.) November is the key…when blue collar wokers actually get out and vote.
Couldn’t have been placed at a worse time. Here’s to hoping that another measure will be written for this fall…
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