Van Nuys Forum on Vouchers Attracts Few

Gearing for a last-ditch effort to win new converts, friends and foes of Proposition 174, the school voucher initiative, squared off in Van Nuys Thursday night, an area both sides agree is a hotbed of support for the ballot measure.

But a community forum at Birmingham High School attracted only about 20 people, possibly foreshadowing what many predict will be a low voter turnout for the Nov. 2 election.

“If there was any issue on the ballot that would make the people take notice, this would be it,” Andrea Spence, 31, a mother of three elementary school-age children, said before the forum.

“But people don’t seem to care, even when it’s an issue that deals with their children,” she said.

If approved by the state’s voters next month, the initiative will require the state to give a tuition voucher worth $2,600 to parents of students who decide to attend private schools.

Supporters say if public schools are forced to compete with private schools for students, the overall quality of education will improve and parents will have more and better options in choosing schools.

“It might be a way to give Valley schools more autonomy,” said James Bronzman, father of a sophomore at Birmingham High School. “I’m willing to take my chances.”

Attorney Bruce Adelstein, speaking for the pro-voucher side in the debate, recounted a litany of ills besetting California’s public education systems: Fourth-graders rank last in reading in the country, SAT scores are down, 20% of students will drop out before graduating and 40% will be unable to read or write at a seventh-grade level when they do graduate.

“In a nutshell, public education is failing to do the job it was set out to do,” Adelstein said.

Opponents, however, say the plan will destroy the public school system and help the wealthy send their children to elite private schools. They add that any group with more than 25 students can open a voucher-redeeming private school, which are not subject to many state educational regulations.

Greg Foster, a consultant to the California State PTA Board who appeared for the anti-voucher side, called the initiative “a hoax.”

“It will not empower parents, it doesn’t lower class size, it will free up no more resources, it doesn’t improve safety--it is a fraud,” he said.

The conflicting points of view and the complicated aspects of the measure left some in the audience confused. “I can’t make heads or tails of it,” said Rose Martinez, mother of two Reseda High School students.

“I was confused before. Now I’m befuddled.”

A Los Angeles Times Poll last month found 45% of voters opposed to the initiative, 39% in favor and 16% undecided.

President Clinton, in a speech before the the AFL-CIO convention in San Francisco Tuesday, urged the state’s voters to reject the measure. Also Tuesday, Gov. Pete Wilson came out against the initiative, saying it would cost the state $1 billion to $1.6 billion over the next three years.

But supporters are expecting strong support from San Fernando Valley residents, a large percentage of whom have expressed unhappiness with the Los Angeles Unified School District.