After the Storm, Schools Remain Needy : Funds must be found despite outbursts of taxpayer anger over assessment proposals

In recent weeks, a number of school districts in Southern California have backed off from controversial plans to impose special tax assessments to pay for the upkeep of facilities. It’s no mystery why. When school board members in Huntington Beach have to be escorted to their cars to avoid an angry crowd, uneasy trustees everywhere are reading the handwriting on the wall. Many of them, unaccustomed to just how hot it can get in the kitchen, would rather switch than fight.

Clearly there’s a lot of anger out there about taxes. When revenue-starved school districts from San Diego to Whittier saw in an obscure 1972 law a way to raise new revenue, anti-tax forces mustered a grass-roots campaign with the speed and intensity of a summer squall. But the message that lingers after the storm is a disturbing one. It is those who make the most noise, file lawsuits and threaten school board members with recall who can bring school governance to a halt. Only the most hardy trustees--like those in Orange Unified School District, facing a lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles-based Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn.--resolve to carry on in the face of opposition from their own neighbors.

After all the insults, questions remains: Should those repairs in the high school tennis court be made? . . . Should the jerry-built sprinkler system be fixed? Or should the schools just let them go? A frustrated trustee in Huntington Beach understood such a choice when she told those railing against the school board that the survival of the system was basically in their own hands.

The advice and consent of voters is a good idea, and school districts would be wise to put assessment fees on the ballot for majority approval. Ultimately, however, those who obstruct even meticulously designed efforts to raise needed revenue will have only themselves to blame when programs and facilities deteriorate.

Empty-nesters or childless adults may not see a direct social benefit in supporting public education. But educating children to be tomorrow’s functioning adults--the ones who will lead communities and pay taxes--is more than an individual parent’s responsibility. There must be communitywide support, such as reflected by the promise by realtors in one Orange County district to rally the business sector. That can help counteract the politics of selfishness, which only dooms public schools to mediocrity--or worse.