Education

The Puerto Rico Department of Education has closed nearly half of the public schools in Puerto Rico since 2007. The impact on students, families, and surrounding neighborhoods is profound, yet it has largely been regarded as collateral damage of a necessary restructuring.

With an amendment to Proposition 13 on California’s ballot in 2020, the conversation around the measure’s impact and its potential reform is intensifying. Understanding how Prop 13 not only resulted in exacerbating inequality, but in some ways welcomed it—by those who stood to benefit from public disinvestment—helps underscore the urgency of its reform.

This policy brief reviews scholarship by members of the Race, Diversity, and Educational Policy Cluster of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at the University of California, Berkeley to advance a broader and more complex...