AUGUSTA – School improvements taking shape under reforms such as Learning Results are threatened by Question 1 on the Nov. 2 ballot, educators and school administrators who oppose the 1 percent property tax cap said Thursday.

Representatives of the Maine Board of Education, Maine Education Association, Parent Teachers Association as well as statewide groups representing superintendents and principals held a news conference at the University of Maine at Augusta to explain why they oppose the so-called Palesky tax cap.

They compared the tax cap to one that was passed in California 26 years ago. Tax cap opponents say California’s Proposition 13 reduced its education system from one of the country’s best to worst, and said the same could happen in Maine.

“Maine should not race California to the bottom,” said James Carignan of the state Board of Education.

Carignan and other speakers said drastic budget cuts resulting from Question 1 would force the schools to abandon ongoing reforms such as Maine’s Learning Results, which requires each school district to develop its own way to assess whether students are meeting state standards.

Paul Malinsky, president of the state superintendents’ group, also warned that “local control over what we have and what we use will be deleted” under the Palesky tax cap.

Students and their parents could expect to see larger classes, less attention to individual students, less remedial help, watered-down curricula, no co-curricular activities and fees for school supplies if the initiative passes, said Rob Walker, president of the Maine Education Association, the teachers’ union.

Opponents also said adult education, which serves 125,000 people in Maine, would be jeopardized by the tax cap.

Tax Cap Yes!, the group pushing for passage, took issue with the opponents’ claims.

Spokeswoman Jen Webber said California’s school system was beset by pressures beyond the tax cap that bloated expenses. She said the student population shot up by 100,000 per year between 1980 and 2000, just as the number of students who needed special help with English language skills rose markedly.

“You just can’t compare Maine and California in education,” Webber said.

Tax Cap Yes! also has contended that cuts won’t be as severe as opponents say.

Group leader Phil Harriman said savings could be achieved by cutting the federal No Child Left Behind Act or state Learning Results, which he said duplicate each other.