How Are California Schools Spending The $1 Billion Voters Approved For Arts Education?

California labor leaders allege school districts are misspending money meant to expand arts education.

In 2022, California voters approved setting aside about $1 billion a year for arts education. Proposition 28 required school districts to use the money to supplement existing funds, not replace them, with the goal of expanding the arts education opportunities available to students.

On Friday, a coalition of labor leaders called on the state’s education department, the governor, and lawmakers to require school districts to prove they are not violating the law.

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What the letter says

The authors, which include leaders of Los Angeles Unified School District’s largest unions, say some districts are violating the law by using Prop. 28 funding to pay for existing programs, staff, and supplies.

For months, advocates have been questioning whether districts would implement the law as intended.

“This is a new initiative,” Austin Beutner, the proposition’s author and former LAUSD superintendent, told LAist. “If we don't make sure that the law is implemented with fidelity at the outset, a pattern is going to be established and [it’s] very hard to recover from that.”

The authors call on state leaders to require school districts to submit documentation that proves they’re following the law — and if they are not, to return the Prop. 28 funding to the state.

LAist reached out to the California Department of Education and leaders of the Senate and Assembly education committees for comment, but hadn’t heard back as of Monday afternoon.

LAUSD's position

The letter doesn’t call out specific school districts, but Beutner said there is at least one example in LAUSD where documents obtained by a parent appear to show an existing part-time arts teacher being paid from Prop. 28 funds.

“The law is clear,” Beutner said. “Every school gets extra money for the arts.”

A district spokesperson told LAist that LAUSD has increased its arts education funding from $74.4 million in the 2022-23 school year to $129.5 million in 2023-24, with an additional $76.7 million from Prop 28.

The Los Angeles Unified teachers union said it has requested more information about how the money is being spent at individual schools to hire new staff.

“We want the state leaders to hold the districts accountable," said UTLA president Cecily Myart-Cruz, "to make sure that the students get the arts education that California voters promised them."