The Secretary of State's Office is expected to announce this week that the initiative known as the Local Classrooms for Local Funding Act failed to qualify for the November ballot. The initiative would have changed the voter threshold for passing a parcel tax from the current two-thirds to 55% when certain accountability requirements were satisfied. The proponents' website,http://www.improvedschoolfunding.com, already reflects the initiative's failure, but assures supporters that the commitment, time, and money that they put into the effort to qualify the initiative helped build a grassroots coalition that is working to support quality public education.

Because the initiative would have amended the State Constitution, proponents needed the signatures of 694,354 registered voters--8% of the total votes cast for Governor in the last gubernatorial election--to qualify. The circulation deadline was May 28, 2010. Proponents were unable to secure the funding required--probably at least $1 million--to gather those signatures, leading to the measure's defeat.

A similar legislative effort to reduce the vote threshold for passage of a parcel tax to 55%, State Constitutional Amendment (SCA) 6 (Simitian, D-Palo Alto), has been stalled on the Senate floor since June 2009 because it would require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to pass.

--Deborah Harmon