REINER'S PRESCHOOL MEASURE MISGUIDED.

Byline: Alan Bonsteel

CALIFORNIANS will see a ``Preschool for All Act'' initiative on the June primary ballot sponsored by Hollywood personality Rob Reiner. Unfortunately, while the evidence for the benefit of universal preschool is strong, even those who favor publicly financed preschool will want to see Reiner's bungled effort defeated.

Just as Reiner's latest film, ``Rumor Has It,'' was a box office flop because of an incoherent screenplay, Reiner's initiative is fatally flawed by his incoherent drafting and ignorance of educational policy.

Currently about half of California's children are served by high-quality, community-owned preschools that maintain safe and secure campuses and teach their children the kinds of values almost all parents would like to see their kids learn. Reiner failed to consult any of the associations representing these preschools, and ended up with an initiative that would do them irreparable harm.

He also failed to consult any of the California K-12 school reform groups, and in so doing ended up with an initiative that repeats every policy error that has resulted in the meltdown of our current system of K-12 education.

For example, California's public schools are governed by four interlocking layers of dysfunctional bureaucracy at the federal, state, county and district levels. No one is in charge of anything, least of all the parents, voters and taxpayers. Not only do the multiple layers of bureaucracy soak up an unacceptable amount of taxpayer dollars, but disagreements among the bureaucracies are resolved in lawsuits, with the taxpayers footing the bill for each side of the dueling educrats.

Reiner's scheme again involves all four levels of bureaucracy, but, worse still, the primary responsibility for administering his tax-funding of preschools is the black hole of California education, our county offices of education.

Most voters are unaware even of the existence of these county offices, and not one in 100 can name their county superintendent of public instruction. As a result of this lack of democratic control and public oversight over the county offices of education, the misnamed ``continuation'' schools they run graduate almost no one, and their schools for mentally and physically handicapped kids are shamefully dysfunctional. Most school reformers have advocated for years eliminating entirely California's county offices of education, and folding their responsibilities into the state department of education and the districts in order to streamline the bureaucracy and provide more transparency and accountability to voters.

Since these county bureaucracies can be counted on to grab all the power they can, almost all of the preschools they fund will be under their control, and very few of the high-quality community-owned preschools that have served us so well would survive. As these community-owned preschools padlock their doors, freedom of choice in preschool education would vanish, and the door would slam shut on quality preschool education for the low-income families who most need it.

Such a scheme would mean not just low quality, but also runaway costs.

Even voters who passionately support publicly funded preschool should want to turn thumbs down on this turkey and wait for a high-quality and thoughtful initiative. Fortunately, it looks like they will do just that.

A Jan. 26 poll commissioned by the Preschool for All people showed only 63 percent support among voters. Since support for initiatives always fades as voters become more aware of the counterarguments, that 63 percent figure with almost five months remaining prior to the election is reason to be optimistic that most parents will vote no when they discover what ``Preschool for All''' really does.

Reiner's misguided agenda can and will be defeated.