There's a chilling moment in "First to Worst," a documentary about the dire state of California schools airing Thursday night on KQED. John Deasy, superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu School District, is asked what Californians would do if they could see normal school conditions in states such as Michigan, Iowa or Connecticut. "They'd move," he replies without hesitation.

Superintendent Deasy is by no means alone. Across the state, teachers, principals and superintendents are struggling to plug holes in leaky ceilings and find sufficient hallway space in which to hold classes.

As one might imagine, these appalling conditions are matched by woeful underachievement. According to the latest National Assessment of Education Progress, the federal government's annual assessment of student achievement, California is tied for last among the 50 states in eighth-grade reading, and is 47th in fourth-grade reading. In the mid-1970s, California ranked near the top in most indicators of academic achievement.

It's not just reading and math that suffer. Across the state, thousands of schools don't have the necessary resources for full-class sports, special- needs students, guidance counselors or textbooks, and many schools have had to cut periods out of the class day because of lack of funding. The schools that are able to provide such resources as after-school programs do so through parent fund raising and donations that can exceed $1,000 or more per family. As a result, our lowest-income students in public schools are hurt the most.

Without question, one of the fundamental reasons for the crisis is the effect of the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, which limited the state's ability to fund schools through property taxes and which requires a two-thirds vote to raise taxes at the local level. The result is that while California has the fifth-largest economy in the world, it now ranks 44th in the country in spending per pupil, adjusted for the cost of living, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

While any politician who challenges Proposition 13 risks political suicide, the long-term economic viability of the state and our children's education is undeniably at stake -- what business would possibly want to relocate to California where the children of its managers and employees would be so disadvantaged? In fact, why should businesses stay?

Voters and legislators will face a number of ballot measures and legislative initiatives this year whose authors hope will make it easier to fund schools in California. Some of these will be worthy of careful consideration, but they will likely face overwhelming opposition from well- funded business lobbyists, who don't want to change the state's tax structure.

Nevertheless, the dual challenges of providing sufficient and equitable resources will need to be addressed if we want to save public schools in a state in which 1 out of 8 American workers lives.

A number of developments suggest that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his education team are taking the problems seriously. The Schwarzenegger administration has already shown a willingness to determine the educational resources and necessary money that would be needed for schools to help students meet state standards by appointing top-notch people to the Quality Education Commission. The QEC, which has received funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, has been charged by the Legislature with addressing the resource question. If it succeeds, we will have a viable blueprint for funding California schools, and the governor will have the information he needs to make necessary funding decisions.

There are a few other positive indicators that our school system is not beyond repair. A few years ago, California put in place a set of standards -- indicators that guide schools about what students should learn and by when --

that are already improving achievement, especially among African American and Latino children. The danger here is that standards are useless unless the principals and teachers who are being held accountable have the resources and the flexibility required to make sure that their students can meet them.

In the end, perhaps, we can take our greatest encouragement from committed educators who are going above and beyond the call of duty to provide our students with a quality education. In "First to Worst," Superintendent Deasy desperately lobbies community members to vote for a referendum that would allow the Santa Monica school district to raise public funds. He knocks on doors, passes out flyers and all but carries people to the polls. His commitment to fund raising is inspiring, but it would be great if he was allowed to focus that energy on educating.

Marshall Smith is director of the Education Program at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in Menlo Park (www.hewlett.org). He served as undersecretary of education in the Clinton administration, and he is former dean of the School of Education at Stanford University.