New Math a Minus for Education

Any tour of the misplaced priorities and fiscal mismanagement of greater Los Angeles has to begin downtown at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s headquarters. This 26-story edifice, with its Italian granite and $300,000 aquarium, is so grand that critics have dubbed it the “Taj Mahal.” This is the same MTA that recently conceded that dreams of subways linking all of L.A. will remain dreams due to the expense.

Nearby, the Twin Towers jail is worth a stop. Although construction of this $337-million, state-of-the-art hoosegow was completed a year ago, it has stood empty because of budget problems and, some say, mismanagement. At least the jail, unlike L.A.’s subway, promises high occupancy.

Now let’s drive to a public school. Hundreds are fixer-uppers, but money is tight. Many need new roofs. Perhaps the best example is Charles Maclay Middle School in Pacoima, one place where roofers are already at work, thanks to emergency funding.

Nature started the job weeks ago, when powerful winds ripped the old patched and repatched tar paper from Maclay’s rooftops and flung heavy shards around the campus. Fortunately, this happened overnight. Later the rains came. Nineteen of the 50 classrooms had to be abandoned.

“If you had been here two days ago,” said Assistant Principal Dan Rodriguez, “you could have seen it raining inside the classroom.”

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It isn’t that L.A.’s grown-ups don’t care about L.A.’s children. Of course they do. The vast majority of people who went to the polls in November cared enough to support a $2.4-billion bond measure to improve L.A.’s schools. On a day when President Clinton won reelection with a plurality of 49%, when the anti-affirmative-action Proposition 209 was passed with 54%, the L.A. school-bond measure received a resounding 65.5% of the vote.

And lost.

It came heartbreakingly close, but lost due to a provision in the state Constitution that requires a two-thirds supermajority vote for the passage of school bonds financed by property-tax increases. One justification for a supermajority is that the vote imposes a long-term financial commitment on taxpayers. But the two-thirds standard is so high that many people question whether it violates the democratic principle of one person, one vote. A no vote, after all, has twice the value of a yes vote. Why should the will of such a small minority prevail over the majority?

How tough is it to get two-thirds? Consider the last time the Los Angeles Unified School District got a bond measure passed. It happened in 1971, not long after the Sylmar earthquake closed many schools and raised serious safety questions about others. Under state law, this special bond required only a majority vote because it would pertain to buildings deemed structurally unsafe. A good thing, too, since this bond measure received a vote totaling 66.5%, still shy of two-thirds.

This inequity finally has become important to a politician with clout. With schools falling into disrepair throughout California, Gov. Pete Wilson urged in his State of the State address that the two-thirds supermajority required for local school construction bonds be replaced by a simple majority.

Wilson wants to put the measure on the ballot in 1998, but fierce opposition can be expected from those who regard Proposition 13 as sacrosanct. Prop. 13, which passed with a simple majority, extended the two-thirds supermajority already required for school construction to other property-tax increases. One of the unintended effects of Prop. 13 was a great transfer of authority from local school boards to Sacramento. Wilson’s power is now evident in grants designed to reduce elementary class sizes. With school construction easier, maybe these new classes will have decent classrooms, and local communities can regain some control over their schools.

The idea that everybody’s vote should count equally shouldn’t seem like such a radical notion. Then again, the problem isn’t the idea of a supermajority but the fact that the threshold is set so high and tax-raising rules are so wildly inconsistent.

Remember Proposition C? That was the half-cent county sales tax in 1990 that helped make the MTA what it is today. It barely got more than 50%--and passed.

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Our tour of Maclay includes the screening of a video that shows tree branches on rooftops and torn tar paper. “Had it been during the school day,” the narrator intones, “the results would have been tragic.”

Now walk around yellow caution tape and find Room 2. Inside, a blue tarp covers desks that are pushed to the center. Warped blackboards have been taken down and lean against a wall near soaked newspapers. There’s already a new roof overhead, but there’s a puddle where a teacher should be standing--residual leakage through ceiling panels that still must be replaced. Elsewhere, students have returned to a classroom where damage was lighter. There’s still a damp, musty smell.

On April 8, voters will be asked again to approve the $2.4-billion bond. The money goes beyond new roofs and other basic maintenance to the construction of new classrooms and modernization of old ones; portable classrooms to relieve overcrowding; security and alarm systems; computer technology, locker replacement and bleacher repairs. It would bring air conditioning to more schools. A San Fernando Valley classroom can be a miserable place on a hot day.

Does air conditioning seem extravagant? The Twin Towers lockup has it.

So it’s good enough for inmates. It’s not too good for schoolchildren, is it?

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Please include a phone number.