Polls Sees Support for School Bonds, but . . .

Voters would likely pass a $3-billion local school bond in November, a poll commissioned by the Los Angeles Unified School District indicates, but two-thirds of those questioned also said the 650,000-student system should be broken into smaller districts.

Based on poll results released Thursday, a majority on the Los Angeles school board said they would vote June 3 to place a bond on the November ballot. The size of the bond remains in doubt because voter support fell below the two-thirds required for passage when people were told it could add more than $100 a year to property tax bills.

School Board President Mark Slavkin said he was encouraged that the poll found generally strong support for improving the maintenance and repair of school buildings and upgrading technology--all areas that would receive substantial portions of the bond proceeds. At the same time, Slavkin and other district officials questioned the poll’s reliability on the breakup issue.

“I think this reflects a phenomenon we’ve seen before: The big institution is generally not liked and trusted, but the local version of it is,” said board member Jeff Horton. “If people think this is money for schools like the one down the street, that gets you the favorable response, even though they don’t like the big district all the way downtown.”

But breakup proponents, who were buoyed in January by a state law streamlining the breakup process, hoped to parlay the poll results into renewed enthusiasm for their cause.

“I’m not surprised at all,” said Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills), who sponsored the breakup legislation. “This is what people have been saying for years--it’s too big, it’s unmanageable--and the LAUSD has refused to listen. . . . Maybe they’ll listen now.”

The poll’s finding that 65% agreed or somewhat agreed with the idea of breaking up the district was the first districtwide look at public opinion since Boland’s bill passed. It was conducted during the past week by Democratic pollster John Fairbank. A Los Angeles Times poll in 1993 found the breakup idea favored by 54% of adults in the city of Los Angeles.

Money from the bond would be earmarked for individual schools and would go to them even if the district is divided, officials said.

About two-thirds of the 1,000 people contacted--considered likely voters because they participated in one of the past two presidential elections--said public education in Los Angeles is “seriously off on the wrong track.”

An even greater proportion--about 70%--agreed with the statement: “We should not have to pay one more dime in increased taxes for schools until the administration cleans up its act and real reform takes place.”

School board member David Tokofsky, the only member to say he would certainly vote against placing a bond on the ballot, said such low opinions of the district bolster his desire to instead hook up with other local government agencies and seek a joint public bond issue.

“When L.A. Unified goes at it alone, not coupled with parks and libraries and the arts and other levels of government, it becomes a referendum on L.A.’s public schools,” Tokofsky said. “Of all the public units, we’ve got the worst credibility, so why go at it alone?”

If approved by the board for submission to voters, the bond would promise about half of its proceeds to modernizing schools, most of which are more than four decades old, and up to $600 million to catch up with a maintenance backlog. Only about 10% would go toward new construction.

Although voters passed a $3-billion statewide bond by a wide margin this spring, Los Angeles Unified stands to gain little of that money, partly because of rules that favor districts that can provide matching construction funds.

Los Angeles Unified maintains that it has never been able to come up with such matching funds. Four years ago it considered a similar local bond, but backed off because district morale was damaged by salary cuts and because a similar poll found that support fell slightly below the two-thirds level.

Fairbank said Thursday that even though the new poll found high approval for a local bond, and even though education has grown in importance in recent national polls, only a strong local campaign would ensure bond passage.

“These are tough campaigns to win,” he said. “This has to be seen as almost a cause by this community in order to pass.”