Dubious Proposition Was a Wake-Up Call : Schools: Unless educators implement reforms already on the books, the next voucher initiative may well succeed.

With the defeat of Proposition 174, the biggest danger now facing our public-school system is that the educational and political Establishments will continue to conduct business as usual, misreading the failure of the school-voucher initiative. In fact, its defeat was not a victory but a wake-up call.

If voters conclude that our schools refuse to change and are unresponsive to the reasonable concerns of parents and taxpayers, it is only a matter of time before another voucher proposal appears on the ballot and succeeds. Those of us who opposed Proposition 174’s billion-dollar giveaway of taxpayer funds to private schools and its total lack of accountability must take pro-active steps now to promote a more responsive public-school system.

Yes, our public schools are underfunded, but money alone isn’t the answer. We need three key reforms:

* Give parents a choice. Public schools should not be a monopoly with little or no meaningful choice for parents. More than anything else, the school-voucher initiative attempted to tap parents’ natural desire for more control over how and where their children are educated. A diverse menu of public-school opportunities ought to be available for all children, not just for those parents who have the financial means to provide their children with a private education.

The Legislature recently passed two promising reforms that will permit parents to reward good schools by voting with their feet: Charter-schools legislation and parental-choice legislation. Charter schools are, for the first time, freeing schools from the web of bureaucratic rules and regulations that can stifle creativity. Parents and teachers can build new local educational models and approaches that retain important safeguards to measure student learning. Charter schools can empower teachers and parents to control their educational destinies--if school districts give them the opportunity.

Parental-choice legislation, which takes effect in January, will permit parents to choose the schools their children attend, regardless of the district in which they live. Although some educational groups in both management and labor initially and vigorously opposed this reform, they removed their opposition when the voucher initiative qualified for the ballot. Now that Proposition 174 is history, a key political question is whether the educational Establishment will seek to maintain the status quo or accept the challenge to develop a rich tapestry of educational opportunities and encourage parents to avail themselves of these new options.

* Restructure schools. Much has been written about the need to reinvent government; nowhere is this more important than in our public schools. As chairman of the Senate Education Committee, I have seen some promising efforts by parents, teachers and principals to rethink the fundamentals of educating our students. For the most part, however, local school districts seem indifferent or even hostile to these efforts; massive institutional resistance is the rule.

Most high schools are structured on a factory model dating back a hundred years or more. The standard top-down, compartmentalized structure no longer works, if it ever did. Secondary schools need to be less bureaucratic and less impersonal. They must have a clearer academic focus for all students, with special attention toward those not bound for college--education that is consistent with the kind of training essential for working in the 21st Century.

In addition to what happens inside the classroom, we need to bolster efforts to make sure so many of our children don’t come to class sick, tired and hungry, without the kind of emotional and parental support they deserve.

One program worthy of support is Healthy Start, where the school site serves as a community center. Diverse social services can be coordinated and provided to children and their families who need them, so children can come to school ready to learn. Healthy Start needs to be embraced by school districts and city and county agencies that have joint responsibility for children at risk.

* Make schools more accountable. An ambitious state testing program is now under way that will let us know how students are performing academically.

Some will oppose these new tests because they focus on problem-solving skills rather than traditional regurgitation of factual material. Others will oppose the standards because economically disadvantaged students will be disproportionately represented by poor test scores. These concerns should be debated, but a strong testing program can help focus attention on what needs to be done and can move California’s 6-million-plus students in the right academic direction.

Will we have the courage to stay the course, or will special-interest groups afraid of accountability undermine the testing program before it has a chance to prove its worth?

These and the other school reforms do not rely solely on more money. The real answer lies in whether each community and its educators heed the wake-up call and join in spearheading major changes. If they simply mark time until another, more sophisticated voucher proposal reaches the ballot, the election results may be surprisingly different.