California has changed the way it finances its schools without changing the way it governs them. School boards continue to govern districts, but the state controls how funds are allocated. One way to implement state governance is to eliminate school districts altogether. Such a system would replace legislative rulemaking with bureaucratic control, making it easier to allocate state resources according to need. This arrangement would also make it easier to hold teachers, principals, and schools accountable to state guidelines.
Charter schools are another possibility.
Authorized in 1992, charter schools operate according to their own goals and procedures, are exempt from most state regulations, and are entitled to block grants equal to what they would receive from a typical school district. As these schools proliferate, however, the state may come under increasing pressure to regulate them, again raising the question of whether schools can be truly autonomous without controlling their own revenue sources. If local control is preferable to state governance, school districts could be allowed to raise their own revenue. According to the authors, this option would be compatible with the Serrano decision if differences in property wealth were effectively neutralized. For example, the state could distribute its aid so that similar tax rates would produce the same revenue per pupil, regardless of the district's tax base.