• The Publisher’s Notebook •

Malibu Should Send SMMUSD Measure R Back to the Drawing Board

BY ANNE SOBLE

Malibuites have a well deserved reputation as strong proponents of public education but this support for public education will begin to erode if the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District doesn’t get the message that it crafted a faulty funding package in the form of Measure R. That measure should be opposed, and the district told in no uncertain terms to go back to the drawing board and redraft it in a way that voters will find acceptable. There is over a year to do this, as current funding measures do not expire until 2009 and 2011. Any revised measure must sunset; a time limit of five years is best, seven is acceptable. This is important for two reasons. First, funding measures should not last in perpetuity as that removes demographic changes and fiscal cycles from the educational policymaking process. It binds the hands of those who might prefer alternative approaches in decades ahead. Second, Malibu is exploring the feasibility of a separate school district, something that I hope proves to be viable. A decade ago, I would have opposed separation, but Malibu schools are no longer the homogeneous enclaves they once were. Student demographics cross socio-economic and ethnic lines in ways that foster real world interface. A measure time frame that takes the gestation period for district division into account is imperative.
The revamped Measure “X” should also provide a blanket optional exemption for seniors for its full five, or however many, years without making those choosing to take it jump through administrative hoops annually. The bureaucratic glitch that occurred last year doubled their burden. For the most part, those taking the optional exemption are not Malibu’s much mediated mega-millionaires, but teachers, HRL administrators, auto mechanics and others who settled in Malibu 30 and 40 years ago. Sure, the school district might secretly wish these folks would sell their humble abodes at 2008 prices, but many of them hang in there with pensions and Social Security checks, and should be given a break without being made to feel like pariahs.
This is a school district, even some of its most ardent fans reluctantly agree, whose administration appears not only to prefer to conduct public policy formulation behind closed doors—witness the special education brouhaha—and come down hard on its critics, but also to be media averse. Reporters who don’t play the PR game can have a difficult time getting their questions answered, let alone their telephone calls or e-mails returned. The need for more openness throughout district operations is paramount. That is why the electorate needs to be informed and do its job. When Malibu voters go to the polls on Feb. 5, they should tell the district that there is no need to ask for whom the school bells toll; they toll for Measure R.