Any and all of the reforms and changes that come from the various task forces will require money. It remains to be seen who will shoulder the burden. It may be tax payers in the form of a new parcel tax or even higher debt loads for future tax payers to remedy.

Alternately, it could also be classroom teachers, who will continue to work ten and twelve-hour days doing the ever expanding demands of teaching Oakland’s children.

Perhaps we will be able to beg funds from the nation’s rich, in the form of grants and Donor’s Choose support.

Ultimately, it will be Oakland’s children. Who will either be shouldered with debt to pay in the future when they are struggling to make ends meet, or subject to underfunded classrooms taught by exhausted teachers. Our teachers, despite their heroically big hearts and herculean efforts, simply will not be as effective as they could be if they could spend their professional time focusing on their children rather than hunting for grants, or working a second job to pay their rent and supply their classrooms with the materials their children need but OUSD can no longer afford.

This is not a call for another few thousand voters to switch their support so that we can pay the next parcel-tax effort. Struggling communities, such as Oakland, typically tax themselves at an even higher rater than their suburban counter parts. In terms of a percentage of their income, urban residents give far more and still raise fewer actual dollars than wealthier communities.

This is a call for California to re-think Prop. 13. Billed as a way to save retirees from being taxed out of their homes by raising property values, the propositions real winners were wealthy and corporate landlords who own vast swaths of California. The unintended results was a disastrous defunding of public education.

It is time to repeal Prop. 13 and find a smarter way to protect home owners who are on a fixed income. Perhaps, we can allow individuals to file for a property tax freeze on their primary residence, if they are on a fixed income or living in poverty, allowing all other property to be taxed at its real value.