Editorial: Yes on Measure I to restore programs Editorial: Yes on Measure I to restore programs (October 20, 2004)

Parcel tax will both sustain salaries and class sizes and begin to restore programs to assure continued excellence of Palo Alto schools
The big danger facing Measure I -- the proposed $521 parcel tax for Palo Alto schools -- is that voters will get lost in a numbers game of future-year tax-revenue projections and warnings of possible layoffs and further program cutbacks if it fails.

The real question facing Palo Alto voters Nov. 2 is simple and stark: Do we care enough about the quality of our public schools to extend the existing $293 per year parcel tax and add an additional $228 a year to begin to restore some of the $6.5 million in cutbacks made in the past two years.

Even though most recent cuts have been from administrative and support areas, anyone who says the schools haven't suffered substantive quality hits from those cutbacks is either ill-informed or is being deliberately misleading.

At the same time, we believe Measure I supporters could have done a better job of making the case for the substantial increase over the existing parcel tax -- which more than 70 percent of voters approved in June 2001.

Without Measure I, that tax would expire in June 2006. With approval of Measure I, it will be expanded to $521 per year and extended to 2013 -- providing a badly needed sense of stability to a district that has been battered with financial uncertainty in recent years. That uncertainty included a defeated state proposal in 2002 to take away its basic-aid funds, which would have slashed district revenues by a devastating 25 percent.

An exemption for anyone over 65 who requests one is also extended under Measure I -- nearly 2,500 persons requested exemptions in 2001, although some opted back in later, according to district officials.

The $293 brought in about $5.5 million per year, which kept teacher salaries competitive with other districts in the area and enabled the district to bring class sizes down.

Measure I's $521 would bring in about $10 million a year at a per-parcel cost of less than $1.50 per day -- the price of a wake-up cup of coffee at local coffee shops. Think of Measure I as a wake-up call to halt recent erosions of quality in our schools.

What does that buy for our schools?

First, it maintains teacher salaries and avoids the possibility of laying off between 60 and 100 teachers, depending on whether property-tax revenues continue to improve as they have this year -- when a 1 percent growth projection last June turned out to be 5 percent by September.

But no one -- no one -- can confidently predict continued improvement in property-tax revenues, and the good news this year should not be a basis on which to oppose or vote against Measure I. Stability is a big part of the equation of excellence in schools, because if district leaders are spending most of their time wrestling with uncertainties and crises they are unable to concentrate on the really important aspects of improving quality and breadth of instruction.

We hope that Measure I opponent Wayne Martin and his spreadsheet predictions are accurate when he projects annual tax-revenue increases of 7 percent or so.

Because if they are, and if Measure I is approved, then the district can start rebuilding its educational program. The three high-priority areas are restoring teacher hours in secondary schools, bringing back reading specialists to elementary schools and restoring high-school counseling services that are so critical to student success.

The counseling goal is to bring the student-to-counselor ratio down from 400 to 360 students per counselor. Failure of Measure I could push that ratio as high as 700 to 1, with predictable results that would affect both the personal academic lives of students and the overall performance of the district. If property-tax revenues do continue grow, the funds would enable the district to restore even more areas that have suffered recent cuts -- art and library programs, for instance.

We hope Martin is correct in his optimistic tax-revenue projections. But he's dead wrong when he uses those projections as an argument against Measure I. We also fail to see how he reaches the blanket conclusion that Palo Alto teachers are "overpaid." Depending on which grade levels and categories are compared, Palo Alto trails between two and six other districts in the region.

Measure I is a reasonable and badly needed step toward providing financial stability and restoring Palo Alto schools to their full richness of educational quality, and we urge a YES vote on Measure I on Nov. 2.

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