Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, a new poll conducted by respected pollster Louis Harris reveals both good and bad news. The bad news is that California teachers, especially those in high poverty areas, report that they do not have the resources to do their jobs. The good news, however, is that teachers strongly support current proposals for education reform that would address this problem.

Governor Schwarzenegger has a unique opportunity to at long last deliver on the promise of Brown - but he will only succeed if he acts quickly and decisively. The state is currently in negotiations to settle Williams v. State of California, a class action law suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of California students, which argues that the state is denying thousands of students their fundamental right to an education by failing to provide the basic resources necessary for that education.

The governor has expressed an eagerness to settle the lawsuit, but his window of opportunity is about to close. His administration has been in active negotiations with the ACLU for several months. However, the stay of litigation expires next Friday.

Unless substantial progress toward a settlement has been made by that date, lawyers on both sides will have no choice but to resume the expensive, time-consuming and counterproductive litigation. The state has already spent over $20 million on outside attorneys' fees, and those costs will multiply if litigation continues.

The new Harris Poll underscores the urgency of reaching a settlement now, rather than spending years in litigation. Many California students do not have the bare essentials for receiving an education, and they will fall through the cracks as litigation drags on.

The poll surveyed a representative state sample of over 1,000 California teachers. It asked teachers about their conditions of work, their beliefs and their perspectives on education reform. Not surprisingly, the teachers reported grim conditions in their classrooms.

Over half (54 percent) of science teachers report that they do not have enough equipment and materials necessary to do science lab work. Half of social studies teachers report that they do not have enough maps, Atlases and reference materials for their students to use or take home. Nearly a third (32 percent) of teachers who use textbooks report that there are not enough copies of textbooks for all students to take home. And 29 percent of teachers report that they have seen evidence of cockroaches, rats or mice in their schools.

What is distressing is the extent to which these trends are magnified at California schools with a high concentration of African American and Latino students. Teachers in these schools report much greater problems with basic educational resources than teachers in schools attended by mostly white students: 43 percent have a high percentage of under-qualified teachers (vs. 4 percent in mostly white schools); and 35 percent lack textbooks for students to take home (vs. 20 percent).

The inequalities represent a moral - and arguably a state constitutional - problem. The issues are simple to understand. Is it fair that schools with our highest poverty students also have the poorest resources? Should schools that do not have sufficient resources to succeed be held accountable for goals that require success? Shouldn't all students have a fair chance to succeed?

To be fair, over the last seven years the state has attempted to address these problems by decreasing class size, providing money for teacher training and holding schools accountable for student achievement. The result is that test scores have increased. But even with the gains, in the latest national assessments every group of our students (whites, Asian, Hispanic and African American) fall below the national average for similar groups in other states.

How then should we address this problem, particularly in a time of budget deficits? Here the poll has something to say. Teachers believe in holding schools accountable, but they also believe that those held accountable should have the resources and responsibility to meet the requirements of the system.

In fact, a substantial majority favor a policy strategy for improving California's schools by 1) allocating budgets based on the needs of the children in the schools and 2) giving local schools the authority to decide how to spend that money. Nothing is quite this simple, but the views provide a strong pair of principles for creating greater equality of opportunity and fair accountability.

In a time of rigorous performance accountability targeted directly at schools, the teachers are saying simply, "Give our schools the authority to spend money that has been fairly allocated to us and we will be responsible and accountable." They are asking to be equal and valued partners in the accountability bargain.

The survey findings add to the argument that the Williams case should be taken seriously. The policies supported by the teachers in the poll provide a route to settlement.

By stepping up to the challenge of settling the suit, Governor Schwarzenegger could make this year's 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education the celebration it ought to be. The alternative is another generation of students with diminished hopes and opportunities.

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Marshall S. Smith is the former dean of education at Stanford and former undersecretary of education in the Clinton administration. He is now program director for education with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in Menlo Park.