Unprecedented two dozen ballot measures deal with schools

Should children in Michigan’s worst public schools get vouchers for private tuition? Should all California students get that option?

How about basing Oregon teachers’ pay on what their pupils learn? Or banning bilingual education in Arizona?

Many of the unprecedented two-dozen education questions on state ballots Nov. 7 aim to have voters set a wide range of education policies, a job usually left to state legislatures or school boards.

Though the presidential election is highlighting education, much of the influence over the nation’s schooling seems to lie with the ordinary citizen this time around.

Besides drawing sound bites away from Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the focus on schools is attracting big bucks from those seeking to influence the ballot measures’ outcome.

“What ends up on the ballot is a reflection of intensity and resources,” said Maris Vinovskis, an education researcher and historian at the University of Michigan.

California’s Proposition 38 to provide any child with a $4,000 voucher for private school tuition has produced huge warchests. Voucher sponsor Tim Draper, a Silicon Valley millionaire, contributed $18 million to the cause. The main opposition, the California Teachers Association, has put in $17.9 million.

Michigan’s Proposal 00-1, a measure less sweeping than California’s, would give a voucher worth about $3,300 to children living in districts where fewer than two-thirds graduate.

That fight has raised $3.7 million from backers, while opponents, mainly teachers unions, have contributed some $600,000, according to latest filings. Amway Corp. chief Dick DeVos, who put up the measure, has contributed $2 million and $740,000 has come from the Roman Catholic Church.

Proposition 203, which would end bilingual education in Arizona, was helped onto the ballot by Ron Unz, a wealthy physicist in Palo Alto, Calif. Unz sponsored a successful 1998 California measure that ended the mandatory practice of teaching non-English speakers only in their own language.

Unz said he was moved to act by immigrants frustrated their children were being put in non-English classes and said families need outside help.

“When you don’t have any money or media influence,” Unz said, “you don’t have much of a chance to do anything about it.”

That influence is felt on other issues. In Washington state, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has spent $3.2 million backing a proposal by educators and parents to allow charter schools. Little money has been spent by the opposition.

Washington’s teachers unions fought a 1996 charter proposal, but polls this year show the 2000 plan could pass.

The unions are instead pouring resources to promote an initiative that guarantees annual raises for public school and community college staff.

Education proposals can raise strong partisan feelings, as well as money.

The two vouchers measures are bitterly opposed by Gore and by teachers unions. The latest polls indicate both measures may fail.

Teachers unions are also battling Oregon’s Measure 95, which would tie teachers’ pay to how much their students learn and limit seniority pay.

Another Oregon proposal, Measure 9, has drawn ire and dollars from gay groups and their allies. The proposal would ban school lessons “encouraging, promoting or sanctioning” homosexuality, from kindergarten to the community college classroom.

The ballot questions also highlight decades of struggle by fiscal conservatives, who seek defeat of this year’s proposals to put more money into schools by raising taxes.

Arizona Proposition 301 would raise the state sales tax from 5 percent to 5.6 percent to pay for schools, including performance pay raises for teachers. Louisiana’s Amendment 2 would boost school funding by raising income taxes and ending the state deduction for federal taxes – but only if voters also approve Amendment 3, abolishing the 4 percent tax on food and utilities.

Pass or fail, education proposals can have an impact beyond the schoolhouse.

For instance, some Michigan Republicans worry the voucher measure, in mobilizing teachers against it, will rebound on their candidates, including Bush, in that critical swing state.

“There is a national force that is consistently pushing these initiatives for a variety of reasons,” said Mary Elizabeth Teasley of the National Education Association in Washington, D.C. The teachers union increased member dues this year to raise $5 million to fight vouchers and other measures it opposes.

But these measures reflect a deeper frustration.

“If schools were all that we wish they were, we wouldn’t see all the initiatives that we are seeing,” said Diane Ravitch, who directed national education research for President Bush.



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