In Chattanooga last month, despite endorsements from civic organizations, PTAs and school officials, voters rejected a $10 million school bond issue. At the same time, citizens of the Center school district in Kansas City, Mo., were turning down—for the third time in a row—a $600,000 bond issue to build a new elementary and junior high school. The same week, homeowners in Ann Arbor, Mich., refused to approve a real estate tax hike to pay for teachers' salary increases; the teachers are now threatening to strike.
Across the U.S., a growing number of taxpayers are rebelling against the mounting costs of public education by voting down new levies and rejecting bond issues. In 1960, according to the U.S. Office of Education, only 11% of the nation's school bond issues went down to defeat; last year, 25.5% were rejected by voters, while countless others were approved by whisker-thin margins. Southern California, where public school expenditures have risen 345% since 1950, is a major center of the revolt: in the past two years, exactly half of the state's 202 school bond issues have been voted down.
Cutting Back on Books. Midwestern cities are also finding it harder than ever to get financial support for public schools at the polls. Last November, Cincinnati voters refused to accept a 50% increase in their real estate taxes to cover school operating costs that have risen by more than $2,000,000 a year. Six months ago, Minneapolis voters defeated a proposed $16 million increase in their real estate taxes to cover a boost in the budget. As a result, the board of education was forced to cut back expenditures for new books, educational films, teachers' sabbaticals and bus services.
To some extent, the taxpayer rebellion reflects a growing concern by parents, especially in urban areas, about the declining quality of public school education. Says Dr. Paul Miller, Cincinnati school superintendent: "People say that Johnny can't read anymore, or Mary can't spell, or kids aren't being taught arithmetic." Voting against bigger school budgets also represents one of the few direct ways that citizens can express their anger at a seemingly endless spiral of rising taxes. Basically, says Calvin Rossi, legislative representative of the California Teachers' Association, the voters "are not saying no to the schools. They are saying no to higher property taxes. Turning down school budgets and bond issues is the only way they can register their protest."
"We Need Help." Since most expenditures are mandated by law, school boards have little choice but to keep resubmitting the defeated budgets to the voters until they relent and approve them. Similarly, most bond issues, after being stripped of a few thousand dollars of frills, pass the second time around: parents generally see the need for new schools when their children start attending overcrowded classes on a shift schedule. But many educators admit that local communities can no longer be counted upon as the primary source of support for public schools. "We need help," says Cincinnati's Miller. "If citizens on the local level refuse to support schools, the state or federal governments will have to step in."