You Can’t Afford To Forsake Schools

School children can’t vote on Tuesday. Their well-being depends on whether busy adults - their parents, their grandparents, their neighbors and the business people of their community consider local public education important enough to take a few minutes, go to the polls and support it.

This election must not be treated as an ideological reaction to the squalid schools portrayed in movies, partisan rhetoric or the nightly news from some faraway city. Nor is it a time to take revenge for a bad personal experience.

This election is about the school down the street. Attended by the kids next door. Staffed by the conscientious teachers most of us know. The vast majority of children rely on these schools. If the schools are equipped to do a decent job, the children get a decent start in life. If the schools aren’t, the children won’t and everyone will pay a terrible price. It’s that simple.

Two kinds of proposals appear on Tuesday’s ballot:

Renewing the local operations levy that funds roughly 20 percent of each school district’s expenses. A yes vote won’t raise taxes, it’ll just keep the schools running.

Bonds or levies to fix worn facilities and equipment. Tax impacts vary. But even these proposals won’t raise total tax rates much; all districts try to time new bonds to the retirement of old ones. Examples of what’s at stake include: replacing worn out school buses in Central Valley; adding classrooms in Liberty; instructional computer hookups in Cheney, Freeman, West Valleyand Spokane; and major facility renovations in Spokane.

We strongly urge our readers to vote yes for their schools.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board