COMMENTARY ON EDUCATION : Initiative Isn’t About Choice, but Money for Private Schools : The Parental Choice in Education initiative would drain $1.5 billion yearly and cripple neighborhood schooling.

Choice is as American as apple pie--an integral part of our heritage--founded with the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock and the town meetings. But choice in today’s vernacular is also a school issue threatening to tear asunder the public schools of California. Choice has become synonymous with voucher and public funds for private schools and signing petitions to place the issue squarely before the public in November.

Emotions aside, what is the problem?

The right to choose the most appropriate school is not the issue. Districts throughout California have policies established by the boards of education allowing students to attend the school of their choice. The parent or student requests, and the student attends, if enrollment limits permit. It happens every day.

In the Fullerton School District, for example, about 10% of the pupils attend elementary schools they have chosen for any number of reasons. The Irvine Unified School District has had space-available open enrollment since 1973.

Magnet schools, attracting students with particular interests and capabilities, are examples of district responses to student needs, enabling them to choose the curricula of greatest desire while ensuring a broad preparation to satisfy graduation requirements. Orange County High School of the Arts, at Los Alamitos High, enrolls about 350 students from throughout the county.

If choice already exists, why is the public being asked to sign initiative petitions to put the issue before the voters? One major reason is money: Private education would, under the measure, be supported with public dollars, to the tune of $1.5 billion each year, ad infinitum. Basic to the Parental Choice in Education initiative is paying $2,600 per student per year of public money toward private/parochial school tuition.

In Orange County, we have about 45,000 private tuition-paying students in 277 schools. How much that enrollment might increase with this financial incentive is unknown. I am convinced that the enrollment would not decrease. When our public schools are already confronted with reduced budgets and teacher layoffs, it hardly seems reasonable or responsible to drain schools even more with a $117-million hit in Orange County alone!

Proponents argue that they will teach California’s 500,000-plus private school students for half the cost to the public. That is patently absurd.

In Orange County, our average cost per student is about $4,200 per year, a figure that includes every special circumstance, including the severely handicapped, children who do not speak English, the hearing-impaired, the remedial--all who need special or individual or small-group instruction at a cost well above average. The public schools must educate these children. The voucher schools are not required to take any of them!

In fact, the voucher-redeeming schools may refuse to enroll or drop any student who is, or is considered to be, making less than acceptable progress. If attorneys accepted only those cases they were guaranteed to win, who would defend the marginal clients who might lose? How many physicians would prefer to take only those patients who were guaranteed to regain good health? County hospitals must admit and attempt to cure everyone. Public Defenders cannot refuse clients because they might be found guilty.

Public schools must take all comers, regardless of the cost or severity of the learning disability, because that’s the law. And it is for the public good. That’s what America is all about!

The initiative is a loose cannon threatening to blow away much of what is good and right about our schools. And it isn’t only the money drain that will further deprive public schools. Consider that voucher schools:

* Can restrict enrollment to good students only.

* Are virtually independent of laws controlling public schools, including curricula and earthquake regulations.

* May be created by a group of 25 or more students whose leadership promises not to violate the laws of the state or nation.

* Can have teachers or owners who hold no credentials, diplomas or degrees.

* Have regulations that cannot be changed by less than a three-fourths vote of the Legislature or by less than a majority vote of local registered voters, not merely those who vote in any given election. Both limitations, I submit, would be impossible to overcome if local taxpayers wanted to change laws or regulations, even on something as simple as zoning.

School-bashing is popular these days. The news is replete with horror stories of non-readers graduating from high schools in major cities across our nation. But in talking with many parents of our 400,000 county students, I hear a different story. I hear accolades for public schools and teachers, kudos for administrators and boards of education, standing ovations for award-winning performances. As a grandparent, I hear my granddaughters’ enthusiasm for their teachers and schools. In my school visits, I see and hear great education in action, qualified teachers exciting students about learning and most parents who are more than satisfied with their schools.

April is Public Schools Month. Before you sign that initiative petition, visit your local school open house, wander through those classrooms, talk with the parents and teachers. If you don’t like what you see, sign the petition--and begin planning to meet the exorbitant cost of ignorance.