California funds schools mostly at the state level. Other states fund schools mostly at the local level. For wealthy people living in wealthy neighborhoods, loc

California funds schools mostly at the state level. Other states fund schools mostly at the local level. For wealthy people living in wealthy neighborhoods, local schools are therefore richer in states where they don’t also have to contribute to funding poor people’s kids’ educations. Here’s a clear summary I found describing education funding in CA https://ed100.org/lessons/whopays https://ed100.org/lessons/whopays The local -> state change to the funding structure in CA a few decades ago has benefitted previously grossly underfunded schools in poorer cities, but it is a trade-off for sure. Arguably almost all of the schools statewide are now underfunded. One problem with funding schools at the state level is that it has made it very difficult to increase school funding, because it requires support from across the state to raise taxes for it, and (a) most people in the USA are generally opposed to any taxes that they can’t see immediate direct benefit from, and (b) Prop 13 makes the bar for tax increases very high.