Wondering why you’ve not heard much about Proposition 88 lately? Or anything at all? While Governor Schwarzenegger and other California political bigshots are cruising up and down the state stumping hard for Proposition 1D, the education infrastructure bond, what you’re hearing on Proposition 88, the other education-related measure on the ballot, is the sound of crickets.

Proposition 88 would impose a $50 parcel tax on most private property in the state to fund $470 million in school improvement programs. $85 million of that total would go to facility lease costs, but according to the state Legislative Analyst’s Office, conditions on the use of the money would mean that only 140 schools statewide would ever get the facility lease funds.

A post on the SFGate politics blog points out that major California education groups didn’t like Proposition 88 competing with Proposition 1D from the beginning, and they formed an unlikely alliance with groups like the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association in opposition to the measure. The effect of the education groups’ opposition was, in the words of the post, to seal the measure’s doom.

And that was before the proposition’s biggest financial backer, Silicon Valley philanthropic group EdVoice, pulled $500,000 from the Proposition 88 campaign and gave it instead to Proposition 1D. Initially, venture capitalist John Doerr (who has given close to $1 million to the backers of proposition 87) and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings gave money to the committees supporting the measure, but they stopped donating once it became apparent that the measure was going to lose, according to an October 31 article in the Orange County Register.

The most recent polls on Proposition 88 show it with anywhere between 42 and 52% support. Nonetheless, as one opponent of the measure was quoted in the Orange County Register article as saying, “Even dead people win elections. It would be foolhardy to assume it’s going to fail.”