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Racial Context and Political Support for California School Taxes
Author(s) -
Nations Jennifer M.,
Martin Isaac W.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
social science quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.482
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1540-6237
pISSN - 0038-4941
DOI - 10.1111/ssqu.12869
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , panel data , demographic economics , politics , context effect , white (mutation) , population , demography , public economics , psychology , political science , economics , sociology , geography , econometrics , law , linguistics , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , archaeology , word (group theory) , gene
Objective To determine how racial context influences school districts’ ability to raise taxes and whether it is mitigated by racial context. Method Panel regression models are fit to a data set of 293 parcel tax measures and 967 California school districts from 1997 to 2010, including data on the racial composition of enrolled students, the district population, and the school board, with controls for features of the policy and the social, political, and economic context. Results School boards were least likely to propose new parcel taxes where there was a high percentage of Latinx students or a large gap between the percentage of white students and the percentage of white residents 65 and older. Once a tax was proposed, these and other measures of racial context had no measurable influence on the propensity of voters to approve it. Policy design influenced outcomes, but not by mitigating racial context. Conclusion Racial context affects whether school districts propose new taxes.