The cost of Government schools in California consumes nearly half of our State budget. One way to control costs is to sit on the boards which determine policy and control budgets.

I have chosen this course of action as the means to increase acceptance of the sea change necessary to remove government from the education landscape.

Finding philosophically friendly candidates for school boards is the immediate goal. The March primary, with Prop.26 threatening, makes this an opportune time to recruit candidates and publicize the threat of Prop.26.

For Immediate Release

8/17/2000

Jack Hickey, longtime San Mateo County resident and taxpayer’s advocate, announced his candidacy for Trustee of the Board of Education, District 6, in the November election. Jack may be remembered for his recent campaign for Trustee of the Community College District. Fiscal restraint and asset management was his theme as he campaigned to have voters reject the District’s Bond Measure.

Jack supports the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer’s Association efforts to preserve the 2/3 vote requirement for bonds by opposing Prop. 39. Likewise, Mr. Hickey opposes Prop. 38 on the basis of it’s constitutionally guaranteed minimum funding clause, which flies in the face of the limits which Jarvis and Gann placed upon our state government.

In his latest quest, Hickey hopes to put a kinder, gentler face on the Board of Education, for taxpayers, and families who choose education alternatives for their children. And, he would like to see venture capitalists step up to the plate by providing private vouchers for the less fortunate, as is being done in other parts of the country..

Hickey cites the nearly $50 Billion cost of government schooling in California as a primary factor forcing both parents into the workforce. The results are "latchkey" kids, empty homes and other unintended consequences. Mr. Hickey’s goal is to significantly reduce that cost by reducing the student base, relegating government schools to serve only as "schools of last resort".

Hickey says, "Our current system of compulsory schooling places a premium on attendance (A.D.A.) while providing the police power to enforce it. The monopoly created by this system puts private schools at a severe disadvantage. These monopolists then cite the shortage of private schools as a reason why vouchers won’t work. It’s time to break up the monopoly."

Hickey sees the first step in that process as a presumption that parents are capable of providing for their children’s education unless proven otherwise. Their choice might involve private schools, neighborhood collectives, private tutors, home schooling, etc. Another step involves opening up school district records to the public via the Internet.

Mr. Hickey is author of the Performance Accountability Voucher for Education (www.PAVE2000.com), a proposed Constitutional Amendment which would provide the means for an orderly transition to a privately funded market based system of education with accountability to taxpayers and parents the goal. Separation of school and state is an integral part of the proposal.