Minority Support: School District Demographics and Support for Funding Election Measures

Abstract

In the context of tight state budgets, local education funding is increasingly important. This article examines the relationship between district-level demographic characteristics and voter support for tax increases to fund the local school district. Using district-level panel data on California school district elections and demographics from 1995 to 2014, we ask the following questions: (1) What is the relationship between demographics and support for school district tax measures? and (2) Does this relationship vary by the type of tax measure? Results suggest that voter support varies by district demographics. However, results differ for bond and property tax measures and suggest that the proportion of Black students increases the likelihood of passing a bond measure but reduces the likelihood of passing a property tax measure. This heterogeneity offers one potential explanation for contradictory evidence in the literature. Results have implications for racial inequality of educational resources between districts.

Racial Context and Political Support for California School Taxes

“…Consistent with some prior research (e.g., Alvord and Rauscher, 2019; O'Brien, 2017), we find different outcomes for districts with many black students and districts with many Latinx students. Our measure of black student enrollment is positively correlated with the proposal of a parcel tax measure.…”

“…Scholars have found an association between increasing racial heterogeneity in the United States and declining support for taxation and public programs (Alvord and Rauscher, 2019; Gilens, 1999; Hero and Levy, 2018; Hopkins, 2009; O'Brien, 2017). Scholars differ on whether this association results from generic bias, such as might arise from in‐group opportunity hoarding, or from a specific bias, such as might arise from anti‐black and anti‐Latinx prejudice.…”

“…The relationship between racial context and public spending has been confirmed at the school‐district level. Scholars have consistently found evidence of lower support for school spending among white voters when black, Latinx, and other nonwhite populations are larger (Alesina, Baqir, and Easterly, 1999; Alvord and Rauscher, 2019; An, Levy, and Hero, 2018; Bowers and Lee, 2013; Poterba, 1998; Tedin, Matland, and Weiher, 2001). The effects of racial context on voters’ willingness to support public schools may be amplified by differences in the age structure of racial and ethnic groups.…”

“…The second hypothesis is that the policy process is biased against specific groups that are structurally disadvantaged or stereotyped as unworthy. In the context of California, this is the hypothesis that voters may decline to support school taxes where school enrollment is highest among Latinx or black children in particular (Alvord and Rauscher, 2019). Note that such biases may arise from explicit or implicit racial prejudices of the decisionmakers, or from structural features of the decision situation (see Small and Pager, 2020).…”

How Does Minority Political Representation Affect School District Administration and Student Outcomes?

“…Our reading of opinion polling data and contemporaneous accounts of education politics in California during our sample period suggests that there were important policy differences between white and non-white voters and school board candidates, with minorities supporting higher levels of education spending than whites. For example, Alvord and Rauscher (2019) show that the probability of passing an education bond increases in California school districts with larger African American and Latino populations, suggesting that African American and Latino voters are more supportive of education funding than white voters. The theoretical predictions we lay out are not mutually exclusive and, for some configurations of school board composition, make similar predictions.…”