Month: June 2016

Assessing the Top Two Primary

With the voting this week, California has now entered its third election cycle with a “top two” primary. This system marks a radical departure from the “semi-closed” approach in place from 2002 through 2010. Under that system, those voters registered with a party could vote only for candidates of that party. By contrast, the top two gives all voters the same ballot so they can vote for whomever they choose, regardless of party, and the two candidates with the most votes (again regardless of party) advance to the fall.

Among other goals, supporters of the top two hoped that the relatively open nature of the system would encourage more candidates to run and would lead to closer outcomes. There was also a general hope that it would give a leg up to candidates who were not favored by the Democratic and Republican Party establishments. How has the system performed and what do the results indicate?

For the state senate and US House, far more candidates under the top two have faced at least one candidate from their own party, a trend that shows no sign of letting up in 2016. But intra-party challenges for the assembly have faded to the point where such competition is not much more common than before the reform. The top two has actually discouraged some major-party candidates in heavily partisan districts from running, since such candidates are no longer guaranteed a place on the fall ballot. The share of such races without major party competition has declined from the highs of 2012 for state senate and US House races (7% now, 13% 2014, 19% 2012), but it continues to be high for the assembly (25% now, 25% 2014, 14% 2012).

What about threats to the party establishment? Incumbents have had something of a bumpy ride under the top two. But most of that can be pinned on the immediate chaos of the 2011 redistricting. The new districts were drawn by an independent citizen commission with little or no regard for incumbency and prompted many incumbents to retire or run for another office in 2012. Things have settled down quickly since then. Sitting members of the assembly are actually less likely to step down now than before the era of the top two.

In fact, on average the top two has been fairly kind to establishment candidates. In 2012 and 2014, every incumbent advanced to the fall campaign, as did almost every non-incumbent endorsed by a major party (205 out of 225). This election cycle is no different: all incumbents, and 103 of 117 endorsed non-incumbents, have advanced. By contrast, just 2 of the 50 minor party or independent candidates on the ballot have advanced, and in both cases, they were running against an otherwise uncontested Democrat.

Finally, while outcomes have been closer under the top two, competition has dropped off over time. Under the semi-closed primary, the gap between the first- and second-place candidates averaged 32 points; it averaged 16 points between the second- and third-place candidates (a divide that decides the finalists in a top two system). Under the top two, the gap between first and second has grown from 22 points in 2012 to 27 in 2014 to 31 in 2016; the gap between second and third has remained flat, between 11 and 13 points. A large share of races this primary election—73%—have produced one candidate with more than 50% of the vote. This number is still lower than the 88% under the semi-closed primary, but it is similar to the 72% in 2014 and much larger than the 59% in 2012. In most cases these races will be uncompetitive in the fall.

Of course, such broad averages may not be the best way to evaluate the system, since specific races have undeniably been changed. This is most obvious for the same-party contests, which could never have occurred under the semi-closed primary. So far there will be 22 such races this election cycle, similar to but slightly lower than the 25 in 2014 and 28 in 2012. At least some of these same-party races will pit a moderate candidate against a more liberal or conservative one, and some of these moderate candidates might win.

In fact, moderate candidates might succeed despite a disengaged electorate. The best evidence suggests California voters under the top two have tremendous difficulty separating the moderate candidates from the rest, and they rarely cross party lines when voting. In fact, the total Democratic and Republican votes in the primary can be predicted well by looking at a district’s party registration. But a dramatic change in voter behavior may not be required. If moderate candidates are more willing to run, and if they have the means to promote themselves, some of them are likely to win. The result would not be a wholesale change in the state’s leadership, but it might cause an important shift at the margins.

Video: Upgrading Technology in California Schools

When it comes to providing 21st century technology to all California public school students, the challenges loom large. Money and training are the two most prominent. A new PPIC report estimates that it would cost $3.8 billion over three years to provide bandwidth for digital learning, issue one device to every middle- and high-school student, and have one IT staffer for every 300 computing devices.

But leadership and collaboration are also powerful tools, and they can help the state, districts, and schools make progress. That is a key takeaway from a panel discussion on education technology sponsored by PPIC last week.

Geoff Belleau, an education program consultant to the California Department of Education, and Ling Ling Chang, Southern California assemblymember, each mentioned public-private partnerships—with Internet providers and other businesses—as ways to fund and deliver technology to California students.

Darryl Adams, superintendent of the Coachella Unified School District, showed how far leadership and collaboration has taken his district, which has plenty of challenges. In his district, 100% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals and 60% are English Learners. Thousands of students are the children of farm workers, and many are undocumented. Many lack high-speed Internet access.

Adams turned to the voters, who approved a local bond measure to fund technology upgrades, and uses federal and state funds for training and implementation. The district provides a tablet to every student from preschool through high school. School buses in the 1,250-square-mile district are equipped with WiFi routers and solar panels to connect students to the Internet. After the buses have made their rounds, they are parked near trailer parks or other areas where homes lack connectivity, effectively serving as mobile hot spots. The district has also developed its own program to train teachers to integrate digital learning in the curriculum.

There are still problems, he acknowledges, but his community has demonstrated the will to solve them. And failure is not an option.

“I’ll put a router on a pigeon and fly him around the neighborhood if I have to,” he said. “Kids have to be connected.”

Anne Neville, director of the California Research Bureau summed up, “It doesn’t all have to be perfect. And it all doesn’t have to be done everywhere for things to start happening.”

Patrick Murphy, PPIC research director, moderated the panel.

Before the discussion, Niu Gao, research fellow at PPIC, and author of the new report on technology provided an overview of her findings.

Learn more

Read the report Upgrading Technology Infrastructure in California Schools

Race and College Admissions in Texas


This post is part of an occasional series examining how California can learn from policies in other states.

Passed in 1996, California’s Proposition 209 prohibits colleges from considering race as a factor in admissions. Partly as a result, the University of California (UC) system does not fully reflect the diversity of the state’s high school graduates, a cause for concern among many observers. This disparity is even greater at the most elite campuses: UC Berkeley and UCLA. Other states facing bans on race-based affirmative action, including Texas, have developed alternative policies to address racial equity in college admissions.

Policy: Texas’s Top 10% Plan

In 1998, Texas instituted a two-part plan to promote diversity at its universities in response to the state’s ban on race-based affirmative action. The first part, the Texas Top 10% Plan, guarantees admission to any public Texas university to students in the top 10% of their high school’s graduating class. The plan relies on the fact that Texas high schools are highly segregated by race and income to produce a diverse set of students with guaranteed admission.

The second part of the plan fills any remaining spots at public universities with students from outside of the top 10%, and allows campuses to consider many factors, including race, during this process. This second part is being called into question in the Fisher v. University of Texas affirmative action case that was recently argued in front of the Supreme Court.

Policy Impact

Following the law’s implementation, the top school in the state, the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), saw more applications and enrollees from traditionally underrepresented high schools—those with high concentrations of minority students, from rural areas or small and midsize cities, and from less affluent regions throughout Texas. The policy also likely encouraged Latino students to apply and gain access to top Texas universities. Today, a majority of UT Austin students are top 10% students. The policy, however, did not produce the same diversity levels as affirmative action.

Lessons for California

UC already has a program called Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC), which guarantees admission for eligible students who are in the top 9% of their high school. Unlike the Texas plan, ELC does not guarantee students admission to the school of their choice—they are only guaranteed a spot somewhere in the UC system. Students who are eligible but do not get into their campus of choice are offered a spot at a campus with space—most often UC Merced. In 2014, over 11,000 UC-eligible students were referred to UC Merced, but very few enrolled.

UC’s guaranteed-admission plan has not led to high levels of diversity at its elite campuses. But would a guaranteed-choice plan like Texas’s work in California? A recent report by the Civil Rights Project shows that California has among the most segregated K–12 schools in the nation, so guaranteeing top students a spot at their preferred UC campus may give students in underrepresented groups across California a path to the top universities that ELC does not currently provide.

More research is needed to determine how California’s most competitive and prestigious public universities would deal with even higher demand. Texas’s results show that guaranteed admission alone can’t produce the same results as affirmative action, but it might be a part of an effective plan to remedy underrepresentation in California’s top universities.

Learn more

Income and Inequality Vary Widely Across California

Income inequality has been growing for decades and—despite the recovery from the Great Recession—remains historically high. Today, the low end of the income spectrum (the 10th percentile) in California is 19% lower than what it was in 1980, and the upper end of the spectrum (90th percentile) is 40% higher, according to our new report. As a result of these trends, the ratio of high to low incomes—a key measure of income inequality—is nearly twice the size it was three decades ago.

In Los Angeles County, high-income families have 15 times more income than low-income families.

Both income and income inequality vary substantially across California. Looking at after-tax family incomes, we find that, in 2014, the Bay Area had the highest incomes. However, the gap between high and low incomes was biggest in Los Angeles County, the Central Valley, and northern parts of the state—places where low incomes tend to be particularly low. For example, in Los Angeles County, high-income families have 15 times more income than low-income families. At the other end, the Inland Empire and Orange County have the lowest income inequality.

Why does the gap between families across the income spectrum matter? In part because low-income families may have insufficient resources to meet their basic needs. If family incomes are widely spread (inequality is high) but even families at the low end of the economic spectrum are able to attain a sufficient level of well-being (poverty is low), income inequality may not be a big problem. But that is not the case: one in five Californians live in poverty.

Inequality itself may also raise concerns for a host of social, cultural, and political reasons. One economic consequence of inequality is that the greater spread of incomes may inhibit upward mobility. Recent research finds a correlation between income inequality in a region and the upward mobility of its children. Low-income children who grew up in areas with higher income inequality have, on average, lower incomes as adults than otherwise similar children who grew up in regions with less income inequality. In this and other ways, the consequences of growing income inequality may play out over generations, highlighting the need for policies that take this long-range view into account.

Source: Based on California Poverty Measure data, 2012–2013 (Bohn and Danielson 2016).
Notes: Dollar amounts are rounded to the nearest $1,000. Income shown includes cash from work and retirement sources net of federal and state income and payroll taxes; low-income tax credits are not included. Dollar amounts adjusted to represent a family of four. The inequality ratio shown is calculated as the ratio of the 90th percentile of income to the 10th percentile of income; higher numbers indicate greater income inequality. Regions defined as follows. Northern: Butte, Colusa, Del Norte, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendocino, Modoc, Nevada, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Tehama, and Trinity Counties; Sacramento area: El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo, and Yuba Counties; Bay Area: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, and Sonoma Counties; Central Valley and Sierra: Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Fresno, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, Mono, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tulare, and Tuolumne Counties; Central Coast: Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties; Inland Empire: Imperial, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties. Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego Counties are shown separately.

Learn more

Read the report Income Inequality and the Safety Net in California

Video: Survey Looks at Candidates & Issues

The most recent PPIC Statewide Survey found a tightening primary race between Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and strong majority support for Donald Trump among Republican primary likely voters.

Dean Bonner, associate survey director, presented the findings at a Sacramento briefing last week. In addition to examining views of presidential candidates, the survey asked California likely voters for their choices in the election for US Senate—and it looked ahead at potential matchups for November in both races.

The survey offers a snapshot of Californians’ views on two key topics being widely debated nationally:

  • Immigration policy. A strong majority of likely voters oppose building a wall along the entire border with Mexico, as Trump has promised to do. There is a stark partisan divide: 86% of Democrats and 72% of independents oppose building a wall, while 59% of Republicans favor it. Asked whether or not undocumented immigrants living in the United States should be allowed to stay legally, 75% of likely voters favor allowing them to stay. Majorities across partisan lines say undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay.
  • US Supreme Court. At a time when the court has issued rulings on a number of polarizing topics, California likely voters are divided in how they rate the court: 46% approve of the way the court is handling its job and 44% disapprove. Should the Senate should confirm Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, to the court? About half of likely voters (51%) say yes, and 33% say no.
Learn more

Read the May 2016 PPIC Statewide Survey: Californians and Their Government
Visit the PPIC Statewide Survey pages

Does Free Community College Grow Enrollment?

This post is the first in an occasional series examining how California can learn from policies in other states.

Tuition-free community college has garnered increasing political support over the past two years. In his recent budget requests, President Obama proposed legislation entitled America’s College Promise to make community college free nationwide. Three states—Oregon, Minnesota, and Tennessee—already have free community college programs, while nine more are considering legislation to create similar programs.

Supporters say that making community college more affordable will increase enrollment and graduation. But will free community college increase overall college enrollment, or will it merely shift enrollment from four-year colleges to two-year colleges?

Policy: Tennessee’s College Promise
Tennessee’s College Promise program—the model for the federal America’s College Promise program—offered its first scholarships to students starting college in the 2015–16 academic year. This program is part of a larger effort to increase the state’s percentage of college graduates from 32% to 55% by 2025.The program provides “last-dollar” scholarships that cover the remaining cost of tuition after a student has used all other available federal, state, and local grant and scholarship aid. Funded by state lottery revenues, Tennessee’s College Promise program will cost an estimated $12 million and provide scholarships to nearly 15,000 students in its first year.

Policy Impact
Initial results suggest that free community college may shift enrollment, rather than growing enrollment. According to an article in the Tennessean, community college enrollment rose by nearly 14% following the program’s implementation, while enrollment at the state’s public four-year institutions decreased. At the University of Tennessee at Martin, enrollment declined by 13% in one year. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga also saw declines in freshmen enrollment, while two nearby community colleges saw dramatic increases.These preliminary results run counter to national trends, which have shown a shift in enrollment away from community colleges to public four-year institutions since 2010.

Lessons for California
California’s community colleges play an essential role in our higher education pipeline. They often serve non-traditional and underserved minority students, and provide workforce training to help students ascend the economic ladder. If providing free community college increased enrollment and graduation, this could lead to higher earnings, more tax revenue, and reduced demand for social services in the state.

But there’s a chance the policy could limit degree production. According to our research, students who begin their postsecondary career at a four-year college are much more likely than those who enroll at a community college to earn a bachelor’s degree, even when controlling for student characteristics. For example, students from low-income families who begin at a four-year college are, on average, two to three times more likely to finish their bachelor’s degree, regardless of their high school GPA.

Other approaches to making college more affordable might have a bigger impact. In California, two-thirds of students already receive free tuition, and about 90% of the cost of attending community college comes from living expenses. Increasing state awards for non-tuition educational costs would be a logical step to improve student access and educational attainment. The Cal Grant B access award currently provides low-income students with up to $1,656 to help pay for items like books, housing, and food. If funding for this award, which started in 1969–70, had kept up with inflation, it would currently by worth over $6,000, nearly four times its current value.

Compared to other states, California ranks 47th in sending our high school graduates to four-year colleges. Improving access and affordability is vital, but California should make sure that policies also increase students’ likelihood of earning a bachelor’s degree, so that more individuals have the opportunity to realize the myriad benefits—economic and otherwise—that these degrees confer.

Figure source: Author’s calculations based on logit regression models using College Futures Foundation student data. Students followed for six years. Data and methods available in Technical Appendix A of the report Making College Possible for Low-Income Students.

Learn more

Visit the PPIC Higher Education Center

A Changing State of Water Conservation

The California State Water Board is charged with balancing all water needs across the state—an especially difficult task when there’s less water to go around. We talked to Fran Spivy-Weber, the board’s vice chair (and chair of the PPIC Water Policy Center’s advisory council), about water conservation and lessons from the drought.

PPIC: What expectations do you have for statewide water use in light of recent changes to the state’s approach to urban water conservation, which replaced the 25% mandate with locally set standards?

Fran Spivy-Weber: I think there will be a bit of an uptick in water use in the short term, but I’m not expecting water use to go up to where it was. My experience after previous droughts shows that after all the work to educate people and change plumbing fixtures and appliances, water use stays pretty flat. Meanwhile, the board is working with the Department of Water Resources to develop long-term water use targets—for indoor and outdoor urban uses—as well as targets for reductions in leakage from pipes. We plan to work on these targets into early fall, and will be getting public input during that time. By the end of the year these targets should be pretty final, and the governor can put them into legislation and agency practice next year. These targets will give everyone something to aim for.

PPIC: What is the most important lesson for California from the latest drought?

FSW: I think it’s to share data about water use with the press and public. We’ve seen strong leadership on water conservation by individuals around the state—most changes were done not because people were told to do so but because they could see there was a limited amount of water available and they wanted to do their part. We also learned that water rates do matter. Water agencies that have drought surcharges did OK, those that did not are suffering. It can be politically difficult to change rates, but when people buy less water during droughts, water agencies with flat rates suffer. People mostly care about having enough water when they turn on the tap; they care very little about how much water their appliances use. The energy sector in California has completely separated the costs of delivery from the service of providing their commodity. The water sector needs to do this too.

PPIC: What is the state doing to encourage innovations in water supply?

FSW: The board’s biggest action was to approve loans for recycled water, and it clearly helped. We’re now identifying how much recycled water is actually being served—we’ll know by the end of summer. The state’s goal is 1 million acre-feet by 2020, 2 million by 2030. On technological innovations in water, the governor’s office is taking the lead. A number of the state’s universities are also pursuing these kind of innovations. Over the next 10 years the way in which water is delivered will likely change dramatically. Water will be reused a lot more, and storm water will be captured in more places. Water agencies tend to be the most conservative agencies—their engineers have to know that when they undertake something new it will provide safe, clean water and meet customers’ needs—so they’re often not eager to take on new technologies. But with the drought and climate change, and an increasing cost of water, they’re starting to think about it more.

PPIC: How much more room do we have to improve urban water efficiency?

FSW: There is much more room for improvement. While a number of communities are achieving 55 gallons of indoor water use per capita per day or even less—particularly in new houses—most people in the state live in older housing, with old, water-wasting fixtures. This will change in the next few years. Outdoor landscaping is changing, and we haven’t seen the end of it—many people pulled out lawns to save water, but now many more are beginning to realize they don’t want lawns that take a lot of maintenance and water.

Learn more

Read “Water Management’s High-Tech Future” (PPIC Blog, September 3, 2015)
Visit the State Water Board’s drought information page
Visit the PPIC Water Policy Center’s water supply resource page