Prop. 174 Raises Issues of Choice, Accountability, Bureaucracy

* Whether you believe that competition with private schools is the best way to improve public schools, that vouchers equalize opportunity for private education, or that parents who enroll their children in private schools are due financial relief, Proposition 174 is a flawed piece of legislation and should not be enacted.

One flaw is the requirement for a three-fourths majority in both the Assembly and Senate to reform the law. If your child were hit by debris during an earthquake you might want the law to be modified to include structural standards for private schools. Instead of passing Proposition 174, channel your beliefs into influence for educational reform through the legislative process.

I urge all California voters to reject Proposition 174 on the basis of its merit as legislation, to inform themselves about effective education and the challenges public schools face in providing it, and to use their interest and power to enact legislation that will reform the structure of California public schools so that all children become responsible, educated citizens and lifelong learners.

DIANE ROSENTRETER

Corona del Mar

* The opponents of Proposition 174 are attempting to spread hysteria. They cry that private schools would have no regulated standards. Public schools have them, and we rank very low compared to the other states. And last year, our SAT scores dropped one point.

Excellence in private schools would result from parents having a choice. They would not long keep their children in private schools showing poor results.

The cry that the cost of public schools to the taxpayers would rise is also a myth. Public education costs much more per pupil that the $2,600 voucher. For every student leaving public schools, they reap the difference as a windfall.

By stressing moral values beginning with primary grades, we might also just be able to rear a generation of students who would not draw a gun and shoot on the slightest pretext.

Education in California would benefit from Proposition 174 by creating excellence through competition.

IRVIN C. CHAPMAN

Costa Mesa

* I must rebut your recent editorial, “Proposition 174: Look Before You Leap,” (Oct. 7) lest more Californians be duped by the teachers union. Your editorial proposes several “loopholes” in the proposal that, in reality, exist in the current system.

You’d wish your readers to believe that we now have accountability when so many of our graduating seniors are legally illiterate. With 13 administrators for every 10 teachers, do you think that we now have any accountability?

You state that “Proposition 174 does not require that voucher schools use credentialed teachers.” Another myth. I have children in two private schools. Both are accredited and use 100% credentialed teachers. Competition enforces these standards. In the public school system, the union protects failing, has-been teachers and resists testing standards. In the union-free private system, you perform or you’re out. Private schools have more direct accountability--to the parents. Try to have your public school remove a non-performing teacher and measure your success.

Don’t be fooled. Parental choice and a competitive environment will force improvement in our school system.

DAVID A. FRAZER

Irvine

* As a parent, taxpayer and (Orange Unified School District) school board member, I find it necessary to respond to Frank L. Ury’s column (“Prop. 174 Offers a Choice, Opportunity for a Better Education,” Oct. 3) in favor of Proposition 174. Although I am opposed to Proposition 174, I found points in Mr. Ury’s commentary that anyone concerned with education needs to pay serious attention to.

Ury’s premise concerns the bureaucratic state that our public education system is in today, the lack of control by parents and the lack of accountability by the bureaucrats who run the districts. Supporting Proposition 174 will not give our schools back to the parents and students. That’s where they are supposed to be today. The elected board members who set policy for the schools should be the representatives of the parents and students.

Yes, Mr. Ury, you are correct. The educational system in California is a bureaucratic mess. However, some far-fetched proposition that may cost millions of taxpayer dollars to implement is not the answer. The question is, who allowed all of this to happen? If the problem, as Ury wrote, is with the “educational bureaucracy that controls education in California,” then I suggest the expedient thing to do is for school board members themselves to tackle the problem head-on. One way to start is to have these bureaucrats look into their very own mirrors.

BARRY P. RESNICK

Orange

* I must respond to Frank Ury’s statement (Oct. 3) that Proposition 174 will give parents a choice. Having carefully studied the text of this initiative proposition, I say private schools will have a choice, not parents. Such schools will be able to reject a child for any reason but ethnicity, race, color or national origin. They will be able to pick and choose on the basis of family income, IQ, gender, physical or athletic ability, etc. Furthermore, at the present time there is only room for 1% of our school population in private schools, making the competition more intense. To say that parents will have a choice is a deception.

Proposition 174 is not about children and opportunity. Rather, it is a drastic restructuring of school financing, the effect of which will be to create an elitist group in our society. American education has always given equal opportunity to its children. This has been our strength and glory as a nation. This is but one reason among many that the League of Women Voters of California urges a “no” vote on Nov. 2 on Proposition 174.

EVELYN L. HINTZE

President, League of Women Voters of Orange County, Laguna Hills

* It is appalling that Frank L. Ury, ostensibly a proponent of public education and an elected member of the Saddleback Valley Unified District Board of Trustees, has a private agenda to destroy that which he was elected to support. There is a direct conflict of interest when a public figure in a role of leadership undermines his assumed responsibility by espousing a view contrary to that which he has been elected to serve.

The Saddleback Valley Unified School District deserves trustees who strive for the best in public education. If Mr. Ury believes in the privatization of the California educational system, he should immediately resign his public role.

JO ANNE SIMON

Mission Viejo

* Chris Loumakis (letter Sept. 26) feels that tax equity is the issue with Proposition 174. Using the logic, it seems equitable that those who pay taxes (some of which are used to maintain public parks and recreation areas) but then elect to join a private country club should have public tax dollars applied to their membership fees at the country club of their choice. To paraphrase Loumakis, “Our failure to accommodate taxpayer choice creates an undue hardship on families electing to use private country clubs!”

Proposition 174 is tax support for private education.

ANGELA IRISH

Laguna Beach

* I am really tired of reading the phrase “wealthy people who can afford to send their children to private schools.” We are not wealthy. We can not afford to buy a house. I am driving a 9-year-old car on its last leg and my husband feels rich if he has a $5 bill in his pocket. Our children are enrolled in a “private” school. We are not the only family that chose our children’s education over material possessions. A majority of families are like ours. They scrimp and do without so that their children will have something in their heads when they finish school.

You do not have to be rich to send your children to a private religious school. Most of us choose to make it a financial priority in our budgets. It isn’t that we can afford to send our children to private schools, it is that we cannot afford not to.

CATHERINE HOAG

Anaheim

* Competition produces a better product and builds a stronger industry. Education is the product, the school system is the industry, and Proposition 174 is the vehicle to improve both.

The substandard educational product of today is evident in the rampant lack of discipline in the schoolroom, the “don’t-blame-it-on-me” attitude of the non-accountable elitist bureaucracy and the cowardice of school boards allowing the misdirection of funds designated for the students to materialize in district offices.

Finding an employed teacher in favor of Proposition 174 would be like finding a county supervisor in the 3rd or 5th District in favor of a commercial airport at El Toro. They’re supposed to be leaders in their respective fields, but can’t take the heat to support what they know is the right thing to do in the long run.

When America and Orange County return to leadership by those who will make the tough decisions, then and only then will reform germinate and reverse the destruction of our culture and our children’s education.

BOB FORSBERG

Lake Forest

* Amazing. Our President is worried about “sending tax money to private schools that didn’t have to meet any standards at all.” How can it be that private schools do such a remarkable job with so few standards, and public schools are reputedly doing so poorly with so many standards? Could it have to do with what “standards” are being maintained?

MIKE BARRETT

Costa Mesa

* I am writing in response to the outrage over the alleged use of public school money and equipment being used to defeat Proposition 174. What do people think will happen if this outrageous initiative passes? We will then have two systems, public and private.

However, the private schools would be able to discuss and send home any politics and propaganda regarding, candidates and issues they wish. And we, as taxpayers, would be helpless to stop them! The public schools would continue to be restricted to not taking stands or voicing political opinions during school time, using school equipment. Is this what we really want?

FRAN GALE

Mission Viejo

* I am a career public school teacher of 26 years at the same school, and I sent my sons to Catholic school. Does that prove that public schools are bad and Catholic schools are good? I chose Catholic school for them because I wanted a religious education for them. I have a friend whose daughter has been in a private, secular school at $7,000 per year since first grade. She didn’t learn to read until third grade. Catholic private schools and secular private schools share the same types of problems that public schools do.

If Proposition 174 passes, the Catholic school private system may be one of the largest beneficiaries. On the one hand, I applaud that. On the other hand, I firmly believe in the separation of church and state. If Proposition 174 passes, that section allowing state monies to be used in school that teach religion will be the first to be challenged. It may be struck down.

Even if it isn’t struck down, consider these questions: Do you have to be a citizen to start one of these private schools? What if an educational system from another country wants to start a school system in California using California taxpayer money? Do they even pay taxes in the first place? What will happen to a private school during a hostile buyout? Will students have a seat or a classroom if the private school system undergoes downsizing for economic reasons? What will happen to student records if the private school fails? What happens to the seniors’ transcripts who are applying to universities with the closure of a private school because of a recession?

Proposition 174, if it is passed, defeats itself at a terrible cost to the taxpayer.

PATRICIA SMITH

Fullerton

* Besides the primary financial opponent to Proposition 174, the teachers union (California Teachers Assn.), other opponents include the California School Administrators and California School Employees Assn. (CSEA).

Being a classified employee who works for a community college district, I find it incredible that CSEA would be abetting the teachers and administrators in opposing Proposition 174. Faculty is ingrained and tenured. Administrators with bloated salaries are arrogant and lackluster. Over-centralization and bureaucratic rigidity spirals the costs of operations and perpetuates public education’s hostility for financial accountability to the taxpayer.

No matter if Proposition 174 passes or doesn’t pass, school districts will be cutting their budgets and downsizing personnel. Which positions will be cut first? Administration, no; faculty, no. The first to be cut will be classified positions. I hope classified employees wake up soon and realize that opposing Proposition 174 is not smart. If it does not pass, you will be culpable in supporting a public educational system that is a colossal failure by measurable standards.

MARY E. TRAEGER

Yorba Linda

* Extra! Extra! Read all about it! The educational bureaucrats are terminally out of touch with California parents.

When you consider that the loudest opponents of school choice are the ones who stand to lose the most, you have to question their motives. By spending millions on deceptive radio and TV ads, it seems clear that the CTA and NEA are frantic about the threat to their power and position.

It reminds me of the battle between David and Goliath, when a courageous lad took on a heathen giant bloated with pride. Only this time, it’s the parents who have the “stones.”

JIM DURBIN

Orange

* Will all the parents who were going to send their kids to a private school that was run by satanic people if Proposition 174 passes instead send them to Mission Viejo, now that the school has adopted a devil mascot? Inquiring minds want to know.

WILLIAM V. FERRARO

Seal Beach

* In all the arguments in the Proposition 174 debate, the one that makes the claim that parents who send their children to private school should have their taxes applied to the private school escapes me.

Taxes are paid for the good of the whole which then benefits the individual. Public schools have been established for everyone including “the least of these my brethren.” If I want something different for my children or for myself I should expect to pay for it.

BEN BOELMAN

Placentia

* Tom Steele of Fountain Valley (Letters, Sept. 26) is entitled to believe whatever he wants about the virtues of school choice. However, belief does not entitle Mr. Steele to make up financial facts about Proposition 174 to fit a preconceived conclusion. Steele made up a whopper when he alleged that “This choice (from Proposition 174) will not remove one dollar from your local school district if the parents and students are satisfied with the educational opportunities at their school.”

Under Proposition 174, public schools will lose state funds even if not a single new student matriculates to a private or religious school. Why? Because Prop. 174 guarantees at least $2,600 to every student currently attending private or religious school, all 550,000 of them. At $2,600 per student, that’s $1.4 billion taken right off the top of the state’s education budget and put into the coffers of private and religious schools.

Furthermore, there are no cost savings to the state under Proposition 174 until 20% of the public school students--1.04 million of them--”choose” to attend private or religious schools.

Based on the experience in other states with school choice programs, there’s no reason to believe that 20% or more of the public school students will ever exit public schools. Yet, until we reach the 20% level, Proposition 174 will be little more than a handsome subsidy to parents with children already in private and religious schools; a subsidy which will deplete the funds available for statewide public education impacting every public school in the state.

MARK P. PETRACCA

Irvine

* Your editorial, “Wilson and the Voucher Question” (Sept. 28) makes a number of unsubstantiated and absurd claims. It demonstrates again that every argument against Proposition 174 comes down to a lack of faith in parents to choose and monitor their children’s education, or a lack of faith in the free market.

You state that “random privatization could actually shatter the state’s public schools.” Nothing in your editorial supports this hysterical assertion. Good public schools have nothing to fear from Proposition 174. Lousy, ineffective public schools don’t deserve to be entrusted with any of our scarce taxpayer dollars, or, even more to the point, the education of our youth.

You question whether the “straitjacket” of a 75% majority to increase the regulatory burden on private schools is wise. The answer is yes, because history tells us that politicians can’t resist the temptation of trying to interfere in the schools on the smallest pretext. Furthermore, without that safeguard, those same politicians could load the private schools with the same expensive, inefficient regulatory burden that now hampers the public schools, and then turn around and claim that the voucher system doesn’t work.

Neither parents nor the marketplace is flawless, but I’ll trust them over the CTA bureaucracy any day.

CYNTHIA L. CROWE

Garden Grove

* The growth in opposition to Proposition 174, as indicated in your recent polls, clearly shows that more people are coming to understand what this proposed amendment to our state Constitution really does. The use of the word choice in this initiative is a cruel hoax. In this state we already have choice as mandated recently by Gov. Wilson. This proposed voucher system is clearly a subsidy for the wealthier students already in private schools.

Proponents of Proposition 174 say that this initiative will encourage competition with public schools, but we are not talking about a fair playing field. Public education has a commitment to educating every child. Voucher-redeeming private schools may discriminate on the basis of sex, religion, physical or learning disabilities, income and IQ. Public schools must follow an incredible list of regulations from safety to credentialed teachers. Anyone with 25 students can become a voucher-redeeming school, and your tax dollars will pay for it.

Proponents of Proposition 174 say that this initiative will cut bureaucracy, but in reality Proposition 174 will create a whole new enormous bureaucracy just to administrate this voucher system (vouchers are mailed monthly). Just imagine this additional cost to the taxpayers.

Proposition 174 is a bad law, and my children, along with all of the other children in public schools, will lose if Proposition 174 wins. The taxpayers of this state will lose if Proposition 174 wins. I encourage everyone to please read a copy of Proposition 174 and see for yourself.

SUE STEWART

President, Capistrano Unified Council of PTSAs

Laguna Niguel

* I am against the school voucher initiative. Private schools should remain private. Parents already have the choice: to send their children to the public school where they live, to get an inter-district transfer to another district, to move to another district, or to pay extra for a private school.

Private schools are for-profit businesses or part of nonprofit churches. Neither deserve funding from taxpayers. In our free-enterprise system, if we work hard and earn enough money we can afford to buy whatever we choose. That includes education.

Public schools are part of the American tradition that helps give equal opportunities to all of our citizens.

The best private schools may have high test scores, but they also have a selected student body (they can refuse to enroll any student with learning disabilities, low IQ, behavior problems, physical disabilities or any other dysfunction that can bring down the average test score).

Parents can help improve their local public school by putting their energy into it. Private, religious, cult and home schools are all alternatives to public schools. Parents have this choice. Public funds should not go to support private enterprises.

SUSANNA BAIR

Sunset Beach

* Does the government in a democracy owe the citizens an educational system? The answer is yes.

Then the schools should be efficiently operated. Since you own the public school system, then you should see that repairs and corrections are made without destroying the system.

Passing Proposition 174 won’t improve education in California. It is a badly written law.

Vote “no” on Proposition 174 and, after Nov. 2, we will work to improve the public schools so that our children will be educated as they should be.

PHILLIP G. BRUSTEIN

Mission Viejo

* Instead of E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One), as it says on our coins, Proposition 174 will Balkanize our schools. Any cult or ethnic groups with 25 students can teach “we are better than them” at taxpayers’ expense.

G. BORDING MATHIEU

Laguna Beach

* I’ll be voting “no.”

Public school choice is a much better idea and is in place with bills AB19 and AB114 as of January, 1994.

MARCIA DESROSIERS

Lake Forest

* Frank Ury (“Commentary On Schools,” Oct. 3) states that educational opportunities would be better for children should Proposition 174 become law. Simple mathematics demonstrates that such would not be the case for the vast majority of students.

The laws of economics predict that “get-rich-quick” entrepreneurs would flood the marketplace. The bureaucracy required just to administer the voucher checks flying back and forth would be incredible.

The tragedy and cruel hoax of Proposition 174 is in its false hopes. No where in the initiative are the educational improvements that it promises mandated.

The competition would not be between public and private schools, but among children. The less fortunate students (or even the above-average student) would be rejected or sent to less competitive schools. Such shuffling would do wonders for a child’s self-esteem. Kids are not “widgets.” They should not be discarded just because they don’t fit the mold.

Dismantling the public school system would not get fourth grade children to watch less television and read more. Successful schools exist in communities where educational achievement is highly prized. Proposition 174’s shotgun effect would destroy those school districts that are producing the very results that Proposition 174 proponents desire. Where is the logic?

RIC STEPHENSON

Mission Viejo