Schools Initiative Would Undercut Prop. 13

Remember playing Monopoly as a kid? If you were like me, the rules would start to bend a little as the game wore on. Someone would become a mortgage broker. Others would claim a presidential pardon from having to go to jail. My favorite trick was to try to declare imminent domain over Park Place.

Hey, if you don’t like the rules, change them.

Californians have their own favorite rule to try to change: Proposition 13. And that is exactly what two northern California activists are attempting to do with the California Competitive Education Act, a proposed initiative that would require the state to spend at least the national average per pupil on education.

This seems like a good idea until you hear the details. If passed, this measure would amount to a $5-billion subversion of Proposition 13. Beyond changing the rules of California’s taxation game, the Competitive Education Act neither gives guidelines as to where all this money would come from nor where it would go.

Now more than 20 years old, Proposition 13 revolutionized taxation in California by limiting property tax increases and requiring a super-majority for new taxes passed by the state or by local governments. Although California governments were forced to go on a fiscal diet, things eventually settled down and governance has improved because of it.

Ironically, if voters were to approve a state constitutional amendment, all they would need is a 50% majority. Find a good cause or a catchy name and you’ll be able to raise taxes in California.

Aside from giving no guidance on how the money would be spent (administrators? lawyers? environmental impact study consultants?), the proposal provides no guarantees that California schoolchildren would receive a better education because of it.

In September, the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.’s (VICA) education and state issues committees took a long, hard look at the act. The education committee concluded that conceptually, spending the national average per student in California is a worthy goal. However, the committees recommended that VICA oppose the act for the following reasons:

* To spend more on education is pointless without accountability. Assurances are needed that the money would be spent on schoolchildren and to their benefit.

* The distribution of funds is not defined in this proposed initiative, and there is concern over whether the money would ever reach the students. (Can you say, Belmont Learning Complex?)

* There is no indication as to where the extra money would come from, and VICA is fearful that this burden would fall most heavily on the state’s business community, endangering our continuing economic growth.

* Writing spending requirements into the state Constitution has proved impractical in the past and should be avoided in the future.

VICA’s board agreed unanimously. The organization believes that a more worthy goal would be to raise the state’s educational attainment levels to the national average, a gauge that is far more important than educational spending levels.

Before this proposal reaches the voters, its authors must find enough people willing to sign a ballot measure that would result in a $5-billion tax increase. But if it ever does, I would encourage you to take a drive down Temple Street to the Belmont Learning Complex and take a look at what our schools have been able to do with almost a quarter-billion dollars. Then ask yourself if you are willing to trust them with even more.

Like Monopoly, the game of politics never seems to end. I would guess that many people involved in politics were masters of Monopoly as children. Both state and federal governments are adept at changing the rules when it fits them.