EDUCATORS SHOULD LEARN FROM THE VOTE TUESDAY

The number of school tax levy issues on the ballot in Southeast Missouri last Tuesday demonstrated the current climate of educational funding. Schools believe they need more money to do their jobs right. However, voting results Tuesday show the electorate to be of a different attitude. It should send a signal to schools that voters can't just be approached with warnings of gloom and doom, but instead with hard facts about educational needs. We reject the notion citizens of this region are indifferent about their schools. Voters will embrace good issues that are presented well, and we don't believe the times will change that.

That view is not to condemn Tuesday's defeated school issues as unworthy. Each vote was different and any blanket post-mortem would be groundless. In the Jackson, Perry County, Meadow Heights and Delta districts, tax levy increases ranging from meager to ambitious were shot down at the polls. A bond issue was on the ballot in Perryville and got a majority of votes, but not the super majority needed. The revenue raised by these issues would have gone to satisfy a broad range of school needs, everything from bus replacement to teachers' salaries. Most of these issues did not survive.

Bucking this trend was the community of Advance, whose voters agreed to pass both a school tax hike and a bond issue. With these measures approved, the levy rate there stands at $2.43, up from $1.62. Admittedly, the Advance rate has been low; the state's minimum levy requirement is $1.25. By contrast, Jackson's rate, had its 35-cent increase not been defeated, would have been $3.55, though a state rollback provision would have effectively set it at $3.19. Those numbers aside, Advance cited concrete needs, educated its citizens to them and portrayed the propositions in terms of improvement, not just an exercise in "more of the same."

In these economic times, and at a point in history when governmental bodies are held in suspicious regard, voters must not only be convinced on tax issues, they must be overwhelmingly convinced. Educators should go to school on Tuesday's vote: measures that increase the tax obligations of citizens won't fly these days on community spirit alone. It takes a good program that is well explained. It takes a reasonable request. It takes an assurance that the money won't go for business as usual. When schools next step forward with these proposals, these are lessons they should have learned.