Perspectives on School Choice : A Measure Built on a Foundation of Lies : The voucher initiative is one of the few remedies that could make a bad situation worse; it’s also fueled by implicit racism.

The reactionary coalition intent on destroying California’s public school system is intensifying the merchandising of a lie as the fall campaign season looms.

For weeks, proponents of Proposition 174--the misleadingly named “Parental Choice in Education Initiative”--have tried to persuade voters that opponents of the initiative are just “education bureaucrats,” preoccupied with their own financial self-interest.

This is fiction--one of the many big lies being marketed by Proposition 174’s merchandisers. What the deception masks is the true nature of this battle--a fundamental struggle for quality public education and fairness and equality in our schools.

The human-rights community in California is responding to Proposition 174 with rare solidarity. In every part of the state, civil rights, civil liberties and good government groups are joining in recognition that Proposition 174 would legalize inequality and discrimination; the result would be the eventual death of our system of free public schools.

The initiative would sanction by law a two-tier school system that would legitimize segregation, allow any education huckster with 25 “students” to call his or her business a school, permit private schools receiving tax money to operate without any accountability to the public and seriously undermine the separation of church and state.

The school-voucher initiative would be an entitlement program offering wealthy families a private-school subsidy for their children, paid for by the rest of the taxpayers; there would be no means test at all. Never mind that a study by the neutral Southwest Regional Laboratory found that very few Catholic and high-quality non-sectarian private schools have the capacity for additional enrollment. Never mind that this same study found that few of these established private schools have much interest in accepting Proposition 174 vouchers (most likely because of the bureaucracy and bookkeeping). The measure is a bonanza for slick operators peddling questionable or even quack educational gimmicks.

This scheme has some of the most fundamentally unjust and discriminatory elements ever to appear on the ballot in California. Schools could legally bar children because of their gender, disabilities, religious belief, need for services like remedial education or even for having once had a minor disciplinary problem in the classroom. Children could also be refused admission based on objections to their own or their parents’ sexual orientation, language fluency or family income.

While the initiative purports to prohibit racial discrimination, its clever wording could deny transportation to poor inner-city children who wanted to attend out-of-area private or public schools, effectively barring their enrollment.

Proposition 174 is fundamentally flawed. Although state-subsidized, these schools would be essentially unregulated, beyond the reach of even public-health officials. Their buildings would not even be required to meet current earthquake-safety standards. Teachers would not have to be credentialed or even to be college graduates.

The new entrepreneurial academies would siphon voucher money from the middle class and the poor, who would get only a third-rate education in return. The true beneficiaries would be profiteering operators who would capitalize on racism, hatred and fear.

Once passed, the initiative would erect impossible barriers to change; any reforms or corrections would be almost impossible to attain, even if most Californians realized that Proposition 174 was a horrible mistake.

Finally, this measure would make a mockery of First Amendment guarantees of separation of church and state. Voucher schools could commingle religious dogma with academics, at taxpayer expense. It would truly be government sponsorship of the teachings of a particular religion.

No one fighting against Proposition 174 is satisfied with the quality of our current public-school system. All of us recognize that there is a crisis in public education. The voucher initiative’s opponents respect and often share the concerns about California public education held by people who may be tempted to vote for the voucher initiative. Many parents so desperately want affordable, high-quality schools for their children that any change seems worth trying.

But of all the possible remedial approaches to the problems of our schools, this is one that would actually make a bad situation infinitely worse. It would lower the quality of education in both public and private schools and shred the constitutional rights of both parents and children.

The cost of the measure is far too great, in every way.