ASSEMBLYMEMBER LELAND YEE (D-San Francisco) is pushing a bill, A.B. 532, that would create a special "classroom learning" license plate in California. Decorated with a "design relating to classroom instruction," it would cost a little more than normal plates. The extra money would go to California schools, which, everyone knows, need every penny they can get.

It sounds relatively innocuous, and it's true that no one would be directly or immediately hurt by this measure. But the bill sends a terrible message: That support for public education is optional. That meeting one of the state's most essential responsibilities is something best left to the charitable impulses of car owners. That the amount of money we spend on books and other instructional materials should correspond to how many people want a picture of a pencil, a blackboard, or maybe an apple, on their license plates.

California already has 10 other special plates, helping fund coastal preservation, scholarships for Sept. 11 orphans, the state's Olympics programs, etc. Florida and Maryland have plates that help fund a campaign to save the manatees and Chesapeake Bay, respectively. All of those are good causes; all of them ideally ought to be funded out of general state revenues. But none of them makes the kind of sweeping statement Yee's bill would make.

States that have good schools pay for them – with taxes. The idea: sound public education benefits everyone, and the burden of paying for it ought to be everyone's responsibility. There are lots of credible proposals to fix this state's school-funding problem, but they share one element: They don't try to fund education with bake sales. Or license plate sales.