The California business community is turning up the volume on the issue of quality public education. In the campaign for better schools, corporate California is more determined than ever to get involved and be a positive force.

Quality schools have long been among the highest priorities, if not the highest, for the business community. There's no news there. Companies well known for their philanthropic attitudes toward education are donating facilities, computers and software, and providing backing needed to gain voter approval of billions of dollars in school construction bonds.

Now, in an unprecedented way, thousands of California companies, through their associations - the California Business Roundtable, the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Manufacturers Association, the California Taxpayers' Association, Technology Network, and the American Electronics Association - are joining forces to speak with a united voice on education policy.

They have formed California Business for Education Excellence (CBEE). With key corporate support from Boeing, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, and the business-labor California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, it is bringing the voice of business to the education policy debate.

The intent is to influence the development of methods that encourage new education standards, assess how they work and assure accountability to the standards. The new organization will work as a partner with the education community, the new Gray Davis administration, and other policymakers to foster a positive and thoughtful debate on education reform.

Bill Hauck, president of the California Business Roundtable and chair of the CBEE, recently told reporters that "our whole focus is on achieving better results."

Preparing the workforce of the future is critically important to the state's economic future. Good schools are high on the list of factors influencing plant location and other economic investment in California.

There already is a model for positive action in the effective business/education partnership that supported the successful $9.2 billion school bond on last November's ballot. The California Business Roundtable, the California Chamber of Commerce and Cal-Tax were vigorous supporters of this landmark commitment to build quality education facilities.

Attention also must be focused on the financial commitment to schools. More California taxpayer dollars are spent on public schools than any other category of spending. However, from the "Happy Days" of the Fifties and Sixties, when 30 percent of all state and local spending was on K-12 education, only 19 percent is spent on schools today. This is despite astronomical growth in overall state and local government spending. Other areas of public spending - government administration overhead, welfare and prisons - have grown significantly and education has lost ground.

Spending priorities must be examined. Improvements in one area of spending, such as the 800,000 welfare recipients who got jobs as a result of the state's welfare reforms in recent years, will ultimately reduce costs for welfare so that resources allocated to schools can be increased.

As education continues to hold center stage, the business community will not be taking a sideline seat. Through this new coalition, there will be a stronger-than-ever voice for quality schools in California.

- Larry McCarthy is president of the California Taxpayers' Association.

Larry McCarthy