Published May 18, 2005
Editorial:
Parcel tax boost is a vital need
Measure A on the June 7 ballot is a critical "quality" test for Palo
Alto schools and students even though it falls short of restoring recent
school-budget cuts.
Voters in the Palo Alto Unified School district rarely will face a more
critical challenge than they will on June 7.
They will be asked to replace the existing $293-per-year parcel tax with a
$493 tax -- admittedly a substantial jump in difficult economic times. But it is
an increase that will help sustain the district's smaller class sizes and
restore some of the $6.5 million in budget reductions the district has had to
make in the past two years.
This is not a blank-check proposal. The estimated $9.3 million per year the
parcel tax would generate will fund the district's class-size-reduction program
for kindergarten through 10th grade, as well as restore staff positions that
include counselors, deans, librarians.
Supporters hope to rebound from a heartbreakingly narrow defeat last November of
a $521 parcel tax proposal, which failed to reach the needed two-thirds voter
approval by less than 1 percent. Overconfidence, ignoring opposition arguments
and distractions of the larger national election were cited as factors in the
defeat.
Critics have assailed the district, accusing it of wasteful practices, paying
its teachers and administrators too much and tolerating the continuance of such
costly programs as the court-ordered Tinsley desegregation program. Opposition
leader Wayne Martin makes some of the highlights of the opposition case clearly
on the opposite page -- supplementing his arguments with spread sheets and white
papers on his Web site.
But somehow the arguments against Measure A seem to stem from his conviction
that teachers are simply paid too much and the district has been wasteful.
We do agree with Martin that the district could do a better job of projecting
anticipated tax revenues, and we clearly believe in efficiency and careful
spending of public dollars.
Martin's other arguments seem based on unlikely circumstances -- such as
whether a judge might reconsider the Tinsley desegregation case, which has added
diversity to Palo Alto classrooms for several decades -- and on
mischaracterization of tax revenues as "excess property taxes."
In the raising of the issue of "outsider students," he and other opponents
come dangerously close to playing a race card in the election, except that they
include Stanford students in the mix -- and unfairly, at that, as the percentage
of district property taxes from Stanford lands exceeds the percentage of
students from Stanford. Yet playing with statistics is nothing new in politics.
The important thing to remember this time around is that without a new parcel
tax the district will need to cut directly and deeply into classroom and
educational programs.
Recent cuts have slashed support services and thus far have had minimal
direct impact on classrooms. Yet those cuts have in fact eroded quality.
Counselors and librarians are not frills, but essential to a well-rounded,
superior-quality district.
Vote yes on Measure A on June 7.
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/2005/2005_05_18.edit18measa.shtml
