GAY GEISER SANDOVAL -- Educationally Speaking

The campaign mail is starting to come hot and heavy. I think the only

candidates who have not promised to reform education are the ones running

for the water board.

However, my latest information about a ballot issue is from the

Pacific Justice Institute, which says it is a nonprofit legal defense

organization in Citrus Heights. Its release is about the importance of

Proposition 38, the school voucher initiative.

This initiative would give each student in California a $4,000 voucher

to spend at the school of his or her parent’s choice. It doesn’t matter

if the student already attends private school or what his or her test

scores might be.

The No. 1 concern of the Pacific Justice Institute and the reason they

urge you to vote yes on Proposition 38 is that otherwise there is nothing

to prevent public or private school teachers who are men from becoming

women.

If your child’s male teacher announced he was going to become a woman

or planned to dress like one, there is nothing you could do to get your

child transferred from that class. If you pass Proposition 38, at least

children attending private schools would be safe.

To think, in all of the hours I have thought about my children’s

education or about the future of education in America, I have never once

worried about my children’s male teachers deciding to become women in the

middle of the school year.

Let’s face it, a good many of them are follicle-challenged, so I guess

it would start a new trend of bald women teachers. Many male teachers

just get past the fashion police as men.

They might be held to a higher standard if they dressed as women. Most

teachers don’t have that much expendable cash to, all of a sudden, get an

entire new wardrobe. We are lucky to see them in a couple new shirts each

year. On what a teacher makes, I don’t think they could afford

transsexual operations. They would have to give up teaching and get a job

in the private sector to afford something like that.

Of more concern to me is the language allegedly built into the

proposition with regard to the effect of regulations on private schools.

Any regulations on schools from 1999 and into the future would require a

vote of both houses of the state Legislature before they would apply to a

private school. Local regulations would only apply if a majority of

qualified electors voted, and then two-thirds of them voted to make it

applicable to a private school.

Land-use regulations would be virtually inapplicable to private

schools, allowing them to open without regulations that would be in place

for public schools or private businesses that were not schools.

Finally, the release suggests that home-schooled kids would not have

to deal with current regulations.

If a parent could get his or her home school accredited, then the

parent would qualify for the $4,000 voucher for his or her own child. If

that parent didn’t charge himself or herself all of the $4,000 to

home-school their child, he or she could save the remainder to use for

college tuition. So, what would prevent a mom from home-schooling her

5-year-old for a year and collecting that $4,000?

Then she could have it held for her child’s college tuition and start

her child in school at age 6 as an older kindergartener.

Guess where the $4,000 comes from? Us taxpayers.

How did my $4,000 to that child help the kid who is getting poor test

scores? Statistically, that child is poor, with both parents working,

probably doesn’t speak English, and has few educational opportunities.

So, when you get to the voting booth, decide for yourself. Are you

more concerned about a big rush of teachers changing their gender or are

you concerned that Proposition 38 does not help the students who are most

in need of help?

GAY GEISER-SANDOVAL is a Costa Mesa resident. Her column runs

Tuesdays. She can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] .