THROUGH MY EYES -- Ron Davis

Suppose you find yourself standing in a courtroom watching a spouse

attempting to collect past due child support. Imagine that you’re the

judge, and the deadbeat spouse offers this explanation for his or her

failure to pay child support.

“Your honor, I love my 5- and 7-year-old kids very much, and dearly want

to pay for their support. I make a lot of money, but, my money’s limited.

By the time I make my payment on my new SUV -- and boy, does that baby

drink gas -- make my insurance payment, the payment on my boat, the

payment on my house overlooking Newport Harbor, and my new hair implants,

there just isn’t enough left for the kids.”

Now, how about this?

In 1964-65, California ranked fifth in the nation on a

per-pupil-expenditure basis in education. In 1997-98, California ranked

37th on some surveys, and even lower on others.

In fact, California is 15% below the national average.

To illustrate we get only what we pay for, consider that California kids

continue to score lower than the national average in almost all subjects

and grades.

That shouldn’t surprise anyone, but it should embarrass us all.

When that same judge asks us for an explanation for our lack of support

for our kids, what do we tell him or her?

“Well, your honor, we taxpayers send a lot of money to Sacramento. In

fact, more than enough to be at the top of the list in providing for our

school kids. But, you’ve got to understand, we send elected

representatives to Sacramento, who we call lawmakers. And, consistent

with their name, they make laws. Lots and lots of laws. And you know,

each one of those laws costs money to enforce. It costs big bucks to keep

people from smoking in bars, and big bucks to keep people from telling

off-color jokes or having a Playboy on their desks.

“And, judge, we really don’t want to increase our taxes to pay for these

laws, so we just take a little money from here and a little money from

there to enforce these extra laws. And guess what, your honor, by the

time all is said and done, we just don’t have enough money for our kids.”

If there is anyone deserving of blame and a public flogging for the

condition of the schools, it is we, the voters and our lawmakers at the

state Capitol.

We have allowed our legislators to make more and more laws, which has

allowed them to rob Peter to pay Paul as a device to fund these extra

laws and programs. Having emaciated Peter and fattened Paul, we seldom

look to see whether sacrificing Peter was worth the trade-off.

The way the system works, Paul always gets fatter, and Peter always loses

weight. And worse yet, we generally bring Peter back to health through

increased taxes, rather than getting the money back from Paul. And then

repeat the cycle again.

You’ll have to take my word that I have made every effort to diligently

research Measure A, the $123-million bond measure to fund the repair of

our high schools, on the ballot Nov. 9. After considerable study, I

support Measure A.

There is little question that our high schools are in need of serious

repair. I suspect that anyone can question whether prior school boards

have spent the money appropriately. I for one refuse to criticize the

prior boards for preferring textbooks to roofs, given the limited

resources the district has been provided.

Most important, the bond measure puts in place assurances that this sorry

condition will not happen in the future by establishing a mandatory

reserve for future repair and restoration, as well as mandatory financial

levels for continued maintenance. Neither of which can be used for

administrators’ or teachers’ salaries.

There are probably many in the community who will vote against this bond

measure as a lesson to this school district and others. They should be

reminded that the districts may hear the lesson, but our school kids will

feel the strap.

And once we get this behind us, maybe we can all sit down and have a

little chat with Paul.

Ron Davis is a private attorney who lives in Huntington Beach. He can be

reached by e-mail at o7 [email protected] .