SANTA ANA : School Trustees Oppose Prop. 174

The Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Education has passed a resolution opposing Proposition 174, the school voucher initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot, saying that it “could do great harm to local schools.”

The resolution stated that Proposition 174 could “cause dramatic losses in teachers, teacher aides, and other resources which have suffered reductions for the past four years.”

A staff report to the board also stated that the district could lose at least $20 million in the 1995-96 school year if the proposition passes.

If approved by the state’s voters, Proposition 174 would give parents vouchers worth $2,600 per year for each child in kindergarten to 12th grade that could be used at any voucher-redeeming public, private or parochial school.

School board members Robert W. Balen, Audrey Yamagata-Noji, Sal Mendoza and Richard C. Hernandez voted in support of the resolution and Rosemarie Avila voted against it.

Avila defended the proposition and called the staff estimates on potential financial loss to the district “speculative.” She also rejected what she called the “false and untrue” wording in the resolution that stated that Proposition 174 would “cut 10% of neighborhood school budgets.”

“The district has a responsibility to inform people how this proposition may affect them but also has the responsibility to ensure that the information is correct,” she said.

Later, Hernandez suggested softening the wording of the resolution, making it less specific about the proposition’s potential negative effects. The board then approved a flurry of changes in wording, prompting Mendoza to quip, “Why not just say, ‘This voucher initiative is a bad thing, period?’ ”

During subsequent discussion, Hernandez denounced what he said were the two assumptions underlying the voucher initiative: that public schools do a terrible job of educating students and that schools could be improved by subjecting them to a competitive marketplace.

Last week, school districts in Brea, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Irvine, Placentia-Yorba Linda and Orange passed resolutions saying the proposition would have a “detrimental impact” on students’ education.