TEACHERS INITIATIVE IS PURE SCIENCE FICTION.

Byline: Davy McClay Local View

YOU may or may not subscribe to the far-fetched ideas portrayed in sci- fi movies such as ``The Matrix.'' But the facts surrounding Proposition 74, the so-called Teacher Tenure Initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot, make a good case for the existence of some kind of surreal world.

First of all, the proponents of Proposition 74 don't have a clue about the realities of teaching. They overlook an important detail: There is no such thing as tenure, or the guarantee of permanent employment, in public education.

Indeed, teachers who make it through the two-year probationary period are terminated regularly in California because of the provisions already written into the state Education Code. All that is being offered with Proposition 74 is a law that sort of says teachers have to work successfully for five years.

If during that time they have two consecutive negative evaluations they can be terminated. Evaluations for what? It's wide open. There is no criteria for termination such as the present code has, imperfect as it is. And what happens if a teacher gets two negative evaluations that are not consecutive?

The only thing this initiative has going for it is a catchy - though totally meaningless - cliche: ``Put the kids first.'' The people who designed this measure are not dumb. Surely they know full well they are offering the public pabulum and manipulating us to believe it is actually filet mignon.

Indeed, this is going to be just like Proposition 187 and get everyone polarized over an issue that, because of its design, will end up being meaningless.

Why are they doing this? All I know is, as a teacher and a citizen, I will do all I can to keep myself and my students unplugged from this absurd matrix.

Teachers and our unions (along with some wealthy Democrat tycoons) are responding not by offering the public a constructive alternative but by bellyaching and name-calling.

In late May and early June, the ballot qualification process was successfully completed and the polls showed almost two-thirds of the voters in favor of this initiative. State Senate leader Don Perata, D-Oakland, offered a good revamp of the existing code with a chance to really put the kids first. His alternative would have accommodated the public demand for more accountability by raising the probation period to four years but would have allowed more effective policing of the teaching profession.

But Perata's proposal was quickly hushed up. The unions endorsed the status quo, adding that the initiative is a piece of junk and will never last.

That's probably true. But if the unions really believe that position why are they spending millions of dollars in members' dues (and asking us for millions more) to combat the initiative?

How voters vote on Proposition 74 is of little consequence. The showy nondialogue in the campaign is not an isolated incident. Indeed, the bandying about of empty pseudo-logic and meaningless cliches in education is happening too much already.

For example, we say that we don't want to leave any child behind, when in fact all we really want is for the education factory to produce higher test scores. Nurturing individual children and meeting their individual needs, as implied by such a cute cliche, is actually antithetical to the de facto version of reality.

When can we unplug ourselves from this matrix we seem to be living in and really put the kids and their parents first?