Class of 2000: Jerry Bowen
Outside Phoenix, Ariz., in the shadow of Luke Air Force Base, students at Dysart High sometimes feel they're in a war zone.
To read the student newspaper, and hear the superintendent talk, they are:
"The situation has become so polarized that I would have to characterize it as an inter-generational war," Superintendent Jesus de la Garza said.
And the supposed enemy is the army of tap-dancing retirees who live up the road in Sun City. They make up a political power and a voting block that routinely blocks school funding.
Their voting has forced townspeople in this largely Hispanic school district to pass the hat just to keep the athletic teams up and running.
To Lisa Luna, Dysart High class of 2000, it's war:
"It makes me mad. Come on. Someone had to pay for their education when they were in school. And now when it's their turn to pay for us, they're like being greedy," Luna said.
Critics say that one of the reasons the schools are in such trouble is that year after year residents of these retiree enclaves have voted down every attempt to raise money for the schools. But that's not all they've been doing.
The Sun City retirees have rallied under the banner of tax revolt, raising thousands of dollars for their campaign at the drop of a shoe box. This Tuesday, in a special election, the seniors will try to secede from the district altogether to stop paying school taxes, as neighboring retirement communities have done.
CBS News Correspondent Jerry Bowen asked retired IRS attorney Robert Kock whether the retirees had essentially declared war on this younger generation.
"Well, that was only as a last resort," Koch said.
Koch himself led the tax revolt.
But if the grandchildren of the people living in Sun City were in the school district, would the retirees still want to avoid paying taxes?
"I'm not saying that," Koch said. "If the people here had grandchildren in the district then they would feel more intimately involved with the district and the idea of separating probably would not occur."
But Robert Koch isn't just a voice in the Sun City tax revolt. He's president of the school board. The retirees took majority control in the last election as a step toward controlling spending. And Koch is getting an earful, even from some senior citizens.
"You disgust me! said Joan Shafer, Mayor of Surprise, Ariz., which is part of the school district.
The Sun City revolt, Shafer said, is a cancer that will spread as the population ages and retirement villages expand.
"Have we raised a generation, my generation, that sits and takes their social security check and then says, 'The hell with the country?' We're not going to give anything back?"
If the retirees are successful, this largely low-income school district will lose one third of its tax base. Benny Duarte, Dysart High class of 2000, questioned the fairness of that.
"What are the going to do? Take the money to hell? Take the money to heaven?" Duarte asked.
No matter how it turns out, this is one civics lesson not likely to be lost on the class of 2000.
©1998, CBS Worldwide Inc., All Rights Reserved