Impact of School Voucher Initiative

The letter of Thea Brodkin (Aug. 1) repeats the absurd argument of the education establishment that under the school choice initiative (Prop. 174) each student using a $2,600 voucher to transfer to a private school will cost the public schools $10,400. An easy way to see the silliness of that bureaucratic arithmetic is as follows. Suppose that under Prop. 174 all of the 5.3 million public school students transferred to private schools. If the public schools really were to lose $10,400 per transfer, the total loss would be over $55 billion. But total spending for California public schools is “only” about $27.5 billion.

The $10,400 figure--the sum of the decline in the legal minimum spending obligation and the assumed maximum possible decline in actual spending--is an egregious example of the double counting for which the education bureaucracy is so justly famous. It is as if a retired individual entitled to receive a monthly pension of $1,000, but actually receiving $1,100, were to claim in the event that the pension fund went bankrupt that the monthly loss is $2,100. Most people would be embarrassed to make such a silly argument. The education bureaucracy is proud of it.

BENJAMIN ZYCHER

Agoura Hills

* Janet R. Beales of the Reason Foundation (letter, Aug. 1) misses the real reason for Prop. 174, the school voucher initiative. It is purely to obtain public funding for private education. If the measure passes, all students now in private education will be able to get a voucher to continue their private school education at public expense in the 1995-96 school year. The current state enrollment in private education is about 538,000 students. This means that 1.35 billion more of state tax dollars will be given to those who already can afford to pay for private schools. It doesn’t take a college degree to see that this pressure on the strained state resources will not help the state balance its budget since these private school students are not costing the state anything at present. It increases state costs but does not increase taxes. (Advocates only tell you the latter.)

Clearly this is a special interest measure being sold on the basis of school choice and competition but in reality it will be a public tax subsidy to private education. The fact is that children of the poor will get few benefits, since they will not have a guaranteed right to admission in the elite private schools. Nor will they be able to find the rest of the money these schools cost (over the $2,600 state voucher), much less the free transportation needed to get there.

JOHN DE BECK

Vice President

San Diego City School Board