A new poll conducted by the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles Times shows that California voters are willing to pay more in taxes if their money went directly to public schools.
Public schools in California have lost many arts, music, and other programs due to budget cuts in recent years. Along with programs being cut back, many teachers have been laid off, as well.
The new study proved that 64 percent of California voters, Republican and Democrats, would not mind paying an increase in taxes for the cause of better education. A cross section of races, genders, income and educational levels were surveyed for the study.
Brittany Fikre, a biology major, said public schools are not educating children properly anymore. She said she would be willing to pay more in taxes for educational purposes. She also said that the government should be giving more to education, but we could all play a small role in helping the cause of better public schools.
“Budget cuts are affecting the younger generation’s ability to be creative through the arts,” Fikre said. “And because of budget cuts, some kids don’t even get to go on the same field trips that we got to go to growing up.”
Supporting public education financially is not the only option the public has to help these institutions.
California was the first state to establish a law called the Parent Trigger law. This law allows parents to petition to the school board to completely restructure a school’s curriculum and staff if more than 50 percent of the children’s parents say the school is failing.
“It’s a good thing that parents are able to step in and take control of their children’s education,” Fikre said.
A total of 1,500 registered California voters were polled for this study from Oct. 30 to Nov. 9. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.52 percentage points.
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