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Youth activists, who since 2018 have been flexing their political muscle with rallies against gun violence and for action on climate change, took on a new cause Saturday morning in the Bay Area: a partial repeal of Proposition 13.
In rallies and marches in San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco, student activists and teachers announced their support for a ballot initiative called Schools and Communities First that would weaken Proposition 13 by removing caps on business property taxes. Property taxes limits on homes would remain.
The change would raise an estimated $12 billion per year, most of which would go to local governments. In making their pitch to the public, though, proponents have emphasized the 40 percent of the money, about $4.8 billion, it would go for education. California currently spend about $67.9 billion on K-12 education.
“We want people to understand this is such a serious issue, the youth are fighting back,” said Cady Chen, 14, a sophmore at The Harker School, a private K-12 school in San Jose.
Chen, a first-time activist, said that even thought she goes to a private school she believes it’s important to increase educational funding statewide.
“It’s our future, so we should be the ones fighting for it,” Chen said. “But it doesn’t hurt if everyone else joins in.”
She found out about the march from Iris Zhou, 15, who had posted on her Instagram Stories seeking volunteers — Zhou and Chen are both members of GENup, a student-led organization based in the Bay Area that planned the marches. Its founders had previously organized for teacher unions. Zhou, a sophomore at Leland High School in San Jose, said students from about 11 different schools either helped plan or reached out about attending the rally in the South Bay.
“I hope this inspires more students to march or advocate for what they are passionate,” Zhou said.
Some 100 students, teachers and parents watched as student speakers criticized a lack of funding for their schools, pointing at classrooms in dire need of maintenance or teachers who they said are underpaid while working in one of the most expensive regions in the country.
After the speakers, which also included Fremont Vice-Mayor Raj Salwan and Assemblymember Ash Kalra, the activists marched from Plaza de Cesar Chavez to San Jose’s City Hall.
In Oakland, about 70 people, including dozens of college and high school students, rallied and gathered petitions for the ballot proposition by Lake Merritt.
Orinda Academy senior Francesca Doyle, one of the organizers of the rally, said the need for more funding is obvious as Oakland Unified officials consider closing and merging schools amid declining enrollment.
“We want students to realize that they can have a say and they can help fight for education,” Doyle said. “We want to show people that it doesn’t have to be as bad as it is.”
Like other students at Saturday’s rallies, who were born decades after California voters approved Prop 13 in 1978, Doyle also took part in school walk-outs and marches protesting gun violence and climate change. Those marches were far larger, bringing thousands of young people into the Bay Area’s streets in 2018 and earlier this year.
Still, many students said they viewed each of the issues as interconnected: problems created or ignored by previous generations that are now burdening young people.
“We’re the generation that is supposed to fix it all,” said Havana Strub, a 16-year-old junior from Oakland School for the Arts who attended Saturday’s rally.
Fixing it all might mean taking on Prop 13, once considered the third rail of California politics. Still, opponents of the law are more bullish than ever on their chances of repealing it — at least partially. Education advocates are so eager that two campaigns have emerged for so-called “split roll” ballot initiatives.
Schools and Communities First has the support of the California Teachers Association and other unions, the Parent Teachers Association of California and the League of Women Voters.
Organizers are also building support for a separate ballot initiative, called Full and Fair Funding, that is sponsored by the California School Boards Association.
Opponents of the proposal, such as the California Chamber of Commerce, say it amounts to a massive tax increase that will harm the economy, and isn’t necessary given California’s recent multi-billion-dollar budget surpluses.
According to a National Education Association survey, California’s average starting teacher salary of $46,992 last year was second-highest among the 50 states.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has likewise warned that the cost of higher taxes for businesses would be passed on to consumers and make brick-and-mortar shops more vulnerable against online competitors.
The marches across the Bay Area might turn out to be just the opening salvo in one of the most contentious ballot fights in 2020. Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assocaiation, wrote in the Orange County Register late last year that the Prop 13 third-rail is “still charged with 20,000 volts.”
But opponents aren’t shying away from a fight.
“We all know we have a long fight ahead of us,” said Rigel Robinson, a Berkeley city councilman who spoke at the Oakland rally. “This is our year — this is our fight and the students will win it.”
