We must defeat Prop 38

By JoAnne (Spear) Brynjestad

Proposition 38 on the November ballot asks voters if the state should give a $4000 "voucher" to each student who attends a non-public school. According to the Legislative Analyst, Proposition 38, the Draper Voucher Initiative, would "result in a major rearrangement of the state system of school finance. This proposition will do nothing to improve our public schools and, in fact, will hurt neighborhood schools by cutting their budgets.

THE DRAPER VOUCHER INIATIVE

FACTS AT A GLANCE

ABANDONS NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS

• Prop. 38 will cut funding to local public schools, which means fewer textbooks, fewer teachers, and more overcrowded classrooms.
• Prop. 38 will cost at least $3 billion and not one dime will be used to improve neighborhood schools.

• Prop. 38 creates unregulated voucher schools that receive taxpayer money, but can make financial decisions in secret and are not required to have their finances audited.
• Allows fly-by-night operators to open voucher schools.Voucher school operators are not required to have any training or experience educating children, and voucher schoolteachers do not need a credential or even a college degree.

• Providing $4000.00 vouchers for the 700,000 students currently in private schools will cost nearly $3 billion.
• Paying for these vouchers and the new bureaucracies created by Prop. 38 will require either a tax increase or a cut in vital services, such as public safety, child care, or transportation.
• The Howard Jarvis Taxpeyers Association opposes Prop. 38.

• Voucher schools - not parents - will choose which school students can attend.
• Voucher schools get public money, but are allowed to reject children for almost any reason, including gender, religion, language, ability to pay, or academic or physical ability.