TV Ads Escalate in Campaign Over School Vouchers

Three months before election day, backers and detractors of a November school vouchers initiative are reaching into voters’ homes with television ads saying that the measure will deliver dreams or disaster.

None of the other seven November measures promises to be as expensive as Proposition 38, which would give parents $4,000 in state money each year to send their children to private schools.

The key backer of the initiative, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Timothy Draper, sees vouchers as a way for children to escape inferior neighborhood schools for the new, challenging private schools he assumes entrepreneurs will open to satisfy parents who are suddenly given the financial means to choose a school. Draper contends that as a bonus, children who stick with public schools will get more attention and funding as their classmates depart.

Nearly the entire California public education establishment disagrees, contending that vouchers will cost public schools overall because state funding is tied to the number of children enrolled, while fixed costs such as heating and janitorial expenses will not change. School officials also argue that private schools do not have to meet the same standards of teacher training and accountability as public schools.

So far voters can’t expect much guidance from independent experts. In a December 1999 review of Proposition 38, the nonpartisan legislative analyst’s office concluded that vouchers could initially cost the state $150 million to $600 million a year. And in the long run, depending upon all sorts of variables, they could either cost the state more than $500 million a year or save it $2.5 billion a year.

Into the fray come the sound bites and images of television commercials.

The ads launched by voucher proponents July 17 feature children who talk of someday visiting Mars, curing cancer or owning a business.

“All of these children have dreams,” the female narrator says. “But when you consider that California schools rank second worst in the nation, what chance are we giving our children to succeed?”

On Tuesday, the No on Proposition 38 campaign launched its response: Two 30-second, $3-million commercials in which Gov. Gray Davis and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante warn that vouchers would drain money from public schools.

“Proposition 38 is an expensive experiment our children can’t afford,” Davis says in the ad. He is surrounded by eight children staring somberly into the camera.

The governor has made school reform a top priority. In June he signed a budget that boosts the state’s annual investment per student to $6,801, a 7.5% increase over the previous year.

In his commercial, Bustamante notes in Spanish that Draper, “the man who wrote Proposition 38,” was appointed to the state Board of Education by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. Draper has said that his frustration with the board’s slow pace of decision-making--he served from April to December 1998--helped inspire the voucher initiative.

Political consultant Gale Kaufman, who is running the anti-voucher campaign, told reporters Tuesday to expect to see more focus on Draper, his background and his motives.

Draper has said he is willing to spend as much as $20 million of his own money to see California become the first state in the nation to adopt a school voucher system. On Tuesday, Proposition 38 spokesman Chris Bertelli said Draper has committed to matching pro-voucher fund-raising dollar for dollar.

Bertelli would not say how much money the campaign has raised so far, and documents showing contributions do not have to be submitted to the secretary of state’s office until July 31.

On the other side, the 300,000-member California Teachers Assn. expects to raise $10 million to fight the vouchers initiative through a voluntary assessment it voted to create in May.

Recent polling of teachers association members shows that 90% dislike vouchers, said President Wayne Johnson.

In 1993, the association and its allies spent an estimated $20 million to fight a similar voucher initiative that would have given parents $2,500 for the private school of their choice. Voters rejected that measure by a 70% majority.

Also on Tuesday, the pro-voucher campaign paid for advertisements in the Sacramento Bee and the San Jose Mercury News. The half-page ads show rows of students at work reading and writing and accuse the California teachers union of cutting a “back room political deal” with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. that could rob children of “their chance to fulfill their hopes and dreams.”

Last week the taxpayers association announced its opposition to the voucher initiative. Voucher supporters accused the group of shopping its endorsement to whichever side would pay for direct mailings that explain the Howard Jarvis group’s positions on an array of ballot measures.

Jarvis officials denied the charge. Johnson, of the teachers association, said group officials agreed to fight the vouchers measure because as taxpayer advocates they question how the state will find $2.8 billion to give vouchers to the roughly 700,000 California students already enrolled in private schools.