THE BELL CURVE -- Joseph N. Bell

If you’re undecided about how to vote on Proposition 26 on the March 7

ballot, take a long look at your neighbors in Irvine.

There, a few months ago, a little more than one-third of the voters in an

Irvine Unified School District election cut the legs from under one of

the model school programs in Orange County by defeating a critically

needed bond issue.

As a result, Irvine school trustees are facing the economic necessity of

closing several neighborhood schools while they try desperately to alert

voters -- only 25% turned out for the last election -- on the importance

of supporting the school bond in another try in April.

Prop. 26 would reduce the vote requirement for local school bonds from

two-thirds -- hung around our necks by Prop. 13 in 1978 -- to a simple

majority.

It would thus prevent those philosophically opposed to the change from

joining up with a predictable minority -- made up largely of older people

on fixed incomes, families without children in school, and citizens who

would vote against any tax, regardless of its merits -- to torpedo the

will of the majority in providing for the education of our greatest

resource: our children.

Although Newport-Mesa won’t have a school bond on the March 7 ballot, the

passage of Prop. 26 is critical to avoid the same fix in which Irvine now

finds itself.

Why this two-thirds monkey should be put on the backs of schools, of all

public facilities, is ironic, indeed. It is doubtful in Orange County

today that a two-thirds majority could be cobbled together for the Second

Coming, especially since the opponents always turn out at near full

strength while the proponents snooze. The few occasions on which it has

happened have been downright miraculous.

There’s a special irony, too, in the March 7 election. The same citizens

voting on Prop. 26 will also be asked to vote on that wonderfully named

Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative that would require a two-thirds

vote on new airports in Orange County, thus effectively making sure there

won’t be any -- especially at El Toro.

A principle seems clearly involved here. What is a person to do who is

outraged over this ploy of the antiairport people and votes against it,

but still wants to maintain a two-thirds majority for passing school

bonds?

Although the issues are different, the principle of simple majority rule

versus an almost unobtainable two-thirds majority isn’t. In both

instances, a vote in favor of requiring a two-thirds majority to carry a

ballot issue is virtually a death sentence against the issue. Is this

justified in one case and not the other?

The critical need for passing a school bond in Newport-Mesa -- whatever

the ballot requirement -- is a separate matter that merits full attention

later. But the passage of Prop. 26 would carry a message to our

schoolchildren.

By restoring the ability of a majority voice in Newport-Mesa to provide

funds to ensure our children a proper environment for learning in the

years ahead, we would no longer be discriminating against them in matters

of public policy.

We have some clear choices in the months before we vote on Newport-Mesa

school bonds. We can spend them demonizing school board members or

administrators for the present sorry state of our schools. Or we can lay

the principal blame on Proposition 13, which I consider much more

culpable.

So does John Nicoll, who was Newport-Mesa’s superintendent when Prop. 13

was passed. Says Nicoll: “By taking away from school districts the

ability to act with a simple majority, this proposition has prevented

local citizens from providing the education they wanted for their

children. As a direct result of Prop. 13, school districts have, for many

years, been required to make a choice between quality in the classroom

and the proper maintenance of buildings.”

But spending our time and energy indulging in the blame game doesn’t

offer the prospect of much help to public school students in this wealthy

district who are working with ragged and outdated textbooks (as my

stepson did at Harbor High) or coping with cold showers (or none at all)

in locker rooms or being taught in decaying and potentially unsafe

structures or studying in a library that hasn’t been updated for two

decades.

The important thing -- the only important thing -- is that we focus on

the issue of primary importance here: the well-being of our kids.

When I moved my family to Orange County 40 years ago, the quality and

availability of education at every level was one of the greatest

attractions. Keeping California in the forefront of American education

was a commitment taken very seriously from the governor’s office right

down to the poorest school district.

Today, California education is floundering, put to shame by the economic

priorities of much poorer states to whom the erosion of educational

funding is a last resort. We can always elect new school board members to

replace those whose actions we deplore. But we can only remove the

restraints imposed on school funding by a clear message in the referendum

process -- starting with the removal of the two-thirds requirement for

the passage of school bonds.

So the first clear choice before us -- after, of course, we shoot down

that God-awful Safe and Healthy Communities Initiative -- is to vote for

Prop. 26 on March 7. Thus we keep open our options for a new airport at

El Toro while we provide a whole new set of options for the proper

education of our kids.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a Santa Ana Heights resident. His column runs

Thursdays.