California’s budget crisis has generated a passionate and important discussion about the value of public education. As a result, we have seen an encouraging outpouring of support for our schools and students in Alameda. Unfortunately, the budget crisis has also served as a painful reminder that the fate of our schools is too often out of our hands and in the hands of the state system in Sacramento instead.

At times, the state-based school funding system may work well enough for many. But in most years it doesn’t, especially for Alameda. And in bad years like 2008 when the state cuts millions of dollars from our budget, the state system breaks down completely. In dark days like these, we have to step up and take on more local financial responsibility. This spring that means we must pass Measure H to offset the precipitous cuts at the state level. The bottom line is that if we fail to pass Measure H, millions of dollars in state budget cuts will devastate the public education system that is the foundation of our community.

The grim reality is that the state has backed Alameda into a corner and has left us with very few weapons to defend ourselves. With the survival of public education as we know it in Alameda at stake, we must fight back every way we can in the short run and the long run, both locally and at the state level.

In the short term, passing Measure H is our only way out.

If we fail pass Measure H, our inaction will speak for us. We will be saying it is acceptable to silence the music, to slash athletics, to cut AP classes, to increase class sizes, to cripple counseling and other critical support services for students this year and to continue the carnage next year when even larger cuts will have to be made, including the closure of several schools, further increases in class sizes, and massive layoffs of teachers and staff. This would be a tragedy. Alameda didn’t create the situation we’re in. But if we fail to pass Measure H when we know what would follow, we will bear the moral responsibility for the tragic, dark days ahead.

On the state level, we are fighting the fight as hard as any other school district in California. Alameda Education Foundation’s “Public education is too valuable to throw away” campaign may be the most well known example. We seem to have a rally or protest weekly, with last week’s protest against the governor at the USS Hornet being the latest example.

Perhaps less well known is the fact that our school board members regularly lobby our elected representatives to advocate for AUSD. For example, just last week, School Board President Bill Schaff testified in the State Assembly about the budget. Also less well known is that there has been slow but steady progress for the past year on developing and executing a legal challenge to the state’s funding system. I’ve been working on that project along with Ann Casper. There is a lot of state-level advocacy happening and the intensity of that activity is increasing.

But we have to be realistic about how long, difficult and uncertain that fight in Sacramento will be. The fundamental challenge is that in order for us to get another dollar, someone somewhere else will lose a dollar. So getting our fair share never has and never will come easily or quickly.

Given how the state budget has worked in recent decades it would be reckless folly to suggest that in the midst of a historic state budget crisis, we should vote down Measure H and instead gamble the fate of Alameda’s schools on a Sacramento-only strategy. What, really, are the chances we will see a suddenly booming economy and a miracle of leadership in Sacramento?

Adults should not gamble their children’s future on a long shot. So right now we have to hedge against the near certainty of millions of dollars in state cuts hitting Alameda by offsetting those state cuts locally with Measure H.

In a perfect world, we would not have to pay a parcel tax for the schools. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in California in 2008, where the state government has failed to fulfill its responsibilities and our kids are left behind to carry that burden.

Here we are. What choice will we make?

Rob Siltanen is an Alameda parent and teacher.