The news is constantly reporting it.

It being the decline of the primary and secondary public schools of California. The schools that California's taxpayers pay for.

Or do they?

In 1984, in a proposition against which I voted, the people of California were sold a bill of goods called Proposition 37, which legalized gambling and put the state in the business of luring its citizens into playing games of chance.

The idea was that one-third of the money would go to making our schools better.

The taxpayers, or rather gamblers, didn't really care about that. They cared more about the one-half of the money that would be given to the few winners who would become instant multimillionaires.

The remaining one-sixth of the lottery money went to the people who paid big bucks for the Yes on 37 campaign. If any institution has surely become better—become richer—from the bundle paid on the lottery, it is surely the gaming administration industry. For it is not the schools, and it is not the sorry idiot who has put down $500 per year for the last 15 or more years on the chance that lightning might strike him twice at the same spot of earth on the same Tuesday one year apart, for the odds are better on that happening than in winning the lottery jackpot.

One problem with the lottery—probably anticipated by those opposed to Prop 37 at the time—is that it gives the California parent and taxpayer the false notion—the illusion—that the money for the schools is now taken care of.

The lottery is in place now. Let's all breathe a sigh of relief. The chronic gamblers will now use their sickness to serve the public good. We can feel good about things. They too can feel good about things.

Of course, that is said in all facetiousness.

Over the last 20 years, along with the apparent decline in student academic performance and the movement by tight-fisted voters to impose an impossible two-thirds supermajority requirement to approve school bonds (and just about any other measure, for that matter), Californians have been voting down measures to improve schools.

Of course, there is some justification. If the students are falling below standards (and standards are being lowered just to pass the students on and out of the system), then what are the voters getting for their money?

But then the voters are to blame as well. Had the lottery never been put in place, schools would have to be funded largely by local bond measures. This would mean that the voter would make an extra effort to inform himself on the issues, and the status of the local school district.

With the lottery in place, the voter made the wrong assumption that he no longer needed to worry about watching over the local school district or the funding of its infrastructure and personnel. The voter and parent does not actively participate in the management of the school as he would have done if the lottery did not exist.

These are strong reasons to get rid of the lottery. If the voter is so angry that he is unwilling to say yes to what he considers “supplemental” local bond measures to maintain the school infrastructure, then he should be willing to remove all sources of funding on a losing investment. Once the starving of the beast is begun, or accomplished, the voter can then make the time and effort to see where the problems lie, and to offer or authorize implementation of the solutions.

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Naturally there will be those who protest the abolition of the California lottery. They will argue that thousands of people will be put into the unemployment line as a result.

Well, of course they will. As they should! If a business operation is not achieving its mission, its objectives, it needs to be disbanded and the people employed to better purposes. The promise—and not merely one of the promises—of the lottery was that the schools would be helped by it. That is the first and foremost mission of the lottery. All other interests are secondary and, if the truth be told, insignificant. If the schools are not getting better, even if through no fault of the lottery, then the lottery has not served its purpose.

If the people behind the lottery were so interested in its survival, then they should have made the effort to establish watchdog offices or to pay for studies that defined the problem(s) of California's schools precisely, and which detailed the mechanism by which they were failing. (The California Lottery Commission has put on their web site a brochure concerning how schools can be made better , although this is still a rather passive effort.) Problems cannot be solved, and failure turned into success, if the problems are not fastidiously described. The rule that properly identifying the problem is halfway to getting it solved still holds true. Did the lottery people take such an interest?

If the answer is no, then they have no one else to blame but themselves for their tremendous short-sightedness.

At any rate, 20 years is long enough for this state to have experimented with the lottery as part of the solution to the problems of the schools. Professor, the results are in, and the it's now high time to put the kabosh on this. If Californians need to be robbed of their money by a shell game, they can run to Reno or Las Vegas as they always did in the past, or it is almost a sure thing an Indian reservation casino is nearby (pardon that non-PC characterization).

Some thoughtful, well-organized Californian ought to propose an initiative to repeal the law or constitutional amendment that brought the lottery into existence. (Since the lottery was given birth by an initiative, that's what it will probably take to make it die and go away.)

It's time for the California parent and voter to make a greater effort to participate in the funding and management of the local school district, and getting rid of the lottery will certainly advance that cause.

Mavi Gözler
American Patriot

14 March 2004

Brochure from California State Lottery Commission on Better Schools   →Go back to reading essay
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