An Adamant Davis Launches Attack on Vouchers Plan

Californians, get ready for a five-month advertising blitz on school vouchers, financed with millions of dollars from a deep-pocket Internet entrepreneur who favors them on one side and teachers unions who don’t on the other.

Gov. Gray Davis, long a foe of vouchers, launched the first attack here Thursday, saying he would write letters or film commercials himself if necessary to combat a November voucher initiative launched by a Silicon Valley businessman.

“I cannot say too strongly how opposed I am to this risky proposition, which I believe will erode the quality of public schools, eliminate accountability and create chaos,” the governor said at a brief rally on the Capitol lawn with school employee union leaders.

“You know I am not happy with the status quo quality of public education,” said Davis, who has focused more attention on California schools than any other issue since he took office in January 1999. “But the point is: We are making progress. . . . The voucher initiative would be a big detour in the wrong direction and would set back the progress we have made to date.”

If Californians pass the measure in November, they will be the first voters in the nation to approve school vouchers.

The initiative, bankrolled by Internet millionaire Timothy C. Draper--who has vowed to spend $20 million of his own money to pass it--is two-pronged. It would give parents the option of using $4,000 in state money each year for tuition at a private school. By giving parents a choice of where to send their kids, proponents say, vouchers will infuse competition into hidebound public schools where union rules and bureaucracy often snuff out classroom energy and creativity.

“I think it is risky to pour money into this failed system,” said Draper in a written statement Thursday. “It’s only fair that every child have access to a quality education regardless of their economic standing.”

The proposition, which hasn’t been assigned a number yet by the secretary of state, would also rejigger public school financing. It would eliminate a formula, locked in by a 1988 ballot measure, that dedicates 40% of the state’s general fund to public education. The measure that voters will face in November would give the Legislature the option of requiring that California at least match the national average for per-pupil spending at public schools from kindergarten through 12th grade.

As it is, in the fiscal year 1997-98 California spent $5,627 per child in its public schools, according to the National Education Assn., considerably below the national average of $6,638. In recent years, California’s public schools have ranked poorly in school funding, quality of teaching and reading scores, especially those of poor urban children.

Chris Bertelli, spokesman for the Redwood City-based School Vouchers 2000 campaign, said vouchers would raise the state’s per-student public school investment regardless of whether the Legislature changes the spending formula. That’s because, he said, as parents moved children from public schools into private ones, they in effect would withdraw only $4,000 of the nearly $6,000 in state money invested in each public school child each year.

“For every child that redeems a voucher and goes to private school,” said Bertelli, “there’s more money left in the system.”

California Teachers Assn. leaders say they spent nearly $20 million to defeat a school voucher measure on the California ballot in 1993 and are willing to do so again. They argue that vouchers do not guarantee a greater investment in the children who stick with public schools as others leave for private ones.

The state distributes general fund money to schools based on how many students are enrolled, so funding could drop along with enrollment, said CTA spokeswoman Becky Zoglman.

“The Legislature could say the money stays in the school,” she said, “but that’s a big if, and there’s no language in the initiative to guarantee that.”

A review by the state Department of Finance and the legislative analyst concludes that school vouchers in the long run could either cost the state more than $500 million a year or save it up to $2.5 billion a year, depending on how many students switched schools.