Prop. 152 a Remedial Must for Schools

As an elementary school teacher, I read it all the time. It’s a children’s story any first-grader can recite: “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” It’s Chicken Little. But it’s also the children in most of California’s elementary schools. All they have to do is look around them and substitute one word: “The schools are falling! The schools are falling!”

For while our children have sometimes failed the tests of history and math, we have failed the tests of responsibility and leadership. In short, our children’s one chance of a lifetime has become a lifetime of chance--because that’s what it becomes without an adequate education in a safe, healthy, thriving environment.

Passing Proposition 152 on June 2--the School Facilities Act of 1992--would be giant step toward rectifying our past failures.

As it is, our K-12 schools are bursting at the seams, with another 2 million children set to join the system by the end of the decade. Half of them will walk through doors that were built before America even set foot on the moon--more than 30 years ago.

Prop. 152 will provide thousands of construction jobs, build sturdy, earthquake-proofed, asbestos-free schools, curb overcrowding and help California kids compete educationally without raising our taxes.

Believe it or not, there is opposition to Proposition 152. (Opponents) propose the wholesale desertion of our crumbling public schools for the shimmering, trendy illusion of “choice.” It is an untested, untried notion that won’t build a single school or repair a single broken windowpane.

On June 2, I urge all Californians to stand up for the proposition that will keep our schools--and the sky--from falling down. Vote “yes” on Proposition 152.

GLORIA MATTA TUCHMAN

Tustin