Policy & Finance
Topic
Elections and Education
Elections have a major impact on California education. Voters have passed ballot measures such as Proposition 98 in 1988, which set the level of state education funding, and Proposition 227 in 1998, which banned bilingual education until voters reversed the ban with Prop. 58 in 2016. Voters also elect the state superintendent of public instruction and local school board members for the state’s nearly 1,000 districts. Perhaps most significantly, they elect governors who have the most control over what happens to education in terms of funding, in appointing members to the State Board of Education and to the UC Board of Regents and the CSU Board of Trustees.