Parcel Taxes for Schools: A Tough Sell for Most Voters

For years, education advocates have wondered what it would be like if they could lower the ballot box threshold for new parcel taxes to 55 percent from the current two-thirds. A new report from the Public Policy Institute of California finds school districts that have already adopted such a tax have four things in common. They're small, wealthy, largely white, and concentrated in the Bay Area. In fact, 80 percent of the state's districts with parcel taxes are in the nine-county region.