Michael Schwartz Schwartz is a
fifth-year sociology student who can be reached at
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In almost every California statewide election since 1994 we have
seen specific attacks on the working class. These attacks have been
specifically at immigrants, people of color, women, gays and
lesbians and youth.
These attacks started with Proposition 187, which sought to bar
undocumented immigrants from receiving education and health care
and continued with Propositions 209, 226, 227, 21 and 22. These
propositions eliminated affirmative action, banned bilingual
education, banned gay marriages, and lowered the age that children
can be tried as adults in criminal court to 14. Every one of the
propositions had the backing of wealthy donors and/or large
corporations.
Proposition 38 is just the latest ballot initiative designed to
eliminate the gains of working people in California and across the
nation.
Proposition 38 is being funded by a multimillionaire venture
capitalist named Tim Draper. Draper has expressed the fact that he
seeks to have public education eliminated and fully privatized
(http://www.NoVouchers2000.com/h/faq.html).
If there is one thing I would like you to remember when you think
about Proposition 38, it is that it is a big tax cut for the
wealthy that will be paid for by working-class families.
Proposition 38 would provide vouchers worth $4000 for every
child who is now in private school or who gets accepted to private
school. The value would rise over the years with inflation. These
vouchers would also be provided to parents who “home
school” their children.
The California Budget Project predicts that there would be
almost $5 billion in losses to public schools if Proposition 38
passes. In fact, if Proposition 38 passes, $3 billion would
immediately be taken from the general tax fund and go to children
who are already in private school. This initiative would also
remove voter-approved constitutional funding for community
colleges, childcare programs provided by public schools, state
schools for the deaf and blind, and schools for the neurologically
handicapped (Sacramento Bee, Sept. 18, 2000).
The idea is that any child who is now in public school would
just pick up and move on to private school where the
“education is better, classes are smaller, and everything is
perfect.”
Ask yourself a few questions: how would working-class parents
afford the normal tuition of $10,000 that it costs to send a child
to private school if the voucher is only worth $4000? What happens
to the public schools if billions of dollars are taken to subsidize
the children of wealthy parents? What happens to those students who
are not accepted by the private schools?
Private schools are completely unregulated. That means they get
to accept whomever they want. Under Proposition 38 it will be legal
for these private schools to discriminate against perspective
students on such principles as gender, class status, mental
ability, physical ability, religion and language skills. These
schools are not required to give their reason for denying entrance
to students (Sacramento Bee, Sept. 18, 2000).
Teachers at these schools wouldn’t be required to have a
college degree, and voucher schools are allowed to decide how money
is spent in closed secret meetings with no public oversight.
It is completely understandable that working-class families are
attracted to the idea of school vouchers, especially the way the
media and Draper portrays them. They look at their local public
school and see that it is overcrowded, with underpaid and
overworked teachers, and they see that their children go without
basic supplies year after year. They continually tax themselves
over and over again in the hope that their schools will improve,
and every time their hopes are destroyed.
Administrative bureaucrats usually waste money that should be
used to improve the schools. Private schools are held up as an
alternative for their children. They see schools that produce
children who go on to study at elite universities, campuses that
have swimming pools and libraries and classrooms where the roof is
not falling apart. Their perception that wealthier children are
receiving a better environment for learning is correct.
Proposition 38, however, is not going to improve the lives of
their children; it will make the local public school even worse,
while providing a nice refund for private school children.
There are currently almost 6 million children attending public
school in California. There are currently 700,000 children
attending private school in California (http://www.NoVouchers2000.com/h/myths/html
and http://www.NoVouchers2000.com/h/faq.html).
Those in favor of Proposition 38 envision all these public school
children moving over to the private schools, but the facts
contradict their claims.
A survey done by the educational research group WestEd found
that less than 1 percent of public school students could expect to
find space in the private schools (http://www.NoVouchers2000.com/h/faq.html).
You now know that the 1 percent that does move would have been
chosen through many different forms of discrimination.
We have to remember what and who is to blame for the terrible
state our public schools are in. In the last 20 years we have seen
the state prison budget grow and grow while our educational budget
has been slashed. It took California 150 years to build 15 prisons
and they have built 21 new prisons in the last 20 years. In that
time we have watched our schools deteriorate.
The public schools that are hurting the most are in the
working-class areas of our state. Wealthier areas have more than
enough resources to improve their schools while poorer areas tax
and tax themselves, but cannot afford to maintain their schools.
The answer is not to look to people like Gov. Gray Davis to fix the
problem. Working people should demand that the money be allocated
to fix the schools in their neighborhoods.
The money that the teachers’ union continuously pours into
the Democratic Party should be reallocated to mobilize people
independently of Democrats or Republicans. These two parties have
both overseen California’s decline from being first in the
nation in education to being one of the worst educational states in
the country.
High quality public education is a right that should be enjoyed
by everyone. As students in a public university we should stand
behind our younger brothers and sisters in school and demand that
public education be placed as a top priority in our state. Slash
the prison budget and fund the schools! Privatizing public
education is not the answer. Vote no on Proposition 38.