Editorials

SACRAMENTO — California school districts that hoped for more money to build new schools will now have to wait until at least early 2003 for any new money. 

Lawmakers adjourned their annual session early Saturday morning without putting a new bond issue on the March ballot, because Gov. Gray Davis and the state’s largest teachers’ union believed the bonds would have a better chance of passing in November 2002 than in March. 

“The presumption is that the chances of passage are significantly better in a general election because of a larger turnout than in a primary,” Sandy Harrison, spokesman for Davis’ Department of Finance, said Monday. 

Legislators will return next month, but only in a special session to deal with energy issues. Other topics will have to wait until January, including the at least $11 billion bond issue. 

Dozens of districts have projects already approved by the state Allocations Board, but the state has run out of money from the record $9.2 billion bond measure voters passed in 1998. The waiting list is expected to reach almost $5 billion. 

Lawmakers are particularly concerned about the districts with crowded year-round schools and the state’s lowest test scores. 

Of the 662 schools with the lowest performance ranking in the state, 260, 39 percent, are on year-round schedules, according to a state analysis of school ratings. 

Many of the schools have more than 900 students, and almost half of the 260 schools on year-round schedules are in Los Angeles. 

Statewide, 1,492 schools in 200 districts with a total of 1.3 million students were on year-round schedules in the 2000-2001 school year, according to the Department of Education. More than 1,000 of those schools, with a total of 1 million students, were on multitrack programs that experts consider detrimental to educational improvements. 

And 239 schools were using a year-round plan called “Concept 6” where students only attend school 167 days a year, instead of the 180 days of other schools. 

These factors led lawmakers to push for another bond issue to pay more school construction. They formed a six-legislator committee to consider the bond. State education officials said in hearings that California needs at least $27 billion in new money for schools. 

After their hearings, committee members waited for guidance from Davis, which they got last Thursday, one day before the end of the 2001 legislative session. 

The Democratic governor said he would support up to $12 billion on 2002 ballots and up to $7 billion for the 2004 ballot. However, Davis wanted the 2002 measure on the November ballot instead of the March primary. 

Committee members, however, thought they had a deal to go for $11.4 billion in March 2002 and the same amount in 2004. 

Without Davis and the California Teachers Association, a major supplier of campaign money for education issues, on board for a March vote, committee members decided to wait, said state Sen. Dede Alpert, a Coronado Democrat and committee co-chairwoman. 

Also, a school bond issue in March would compete against a $2.6 billion bond proposal for parks, said Assemblywoman Virginia Strom-Martin, D-Duncans Mills, the other committee co-chairwoman. 

“Nobody wants to be on the same ballot with a $11.4 billion school facilities bond,” she said.