A Cause to Rally Round

California’s public schools are giving students a better education, thanks to a shared commitment by Gov. George Deukmejian, Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig and the California Legislature. That will continue to be the case only if the state sticks to a long-term schedule of rising investment in the future.

Honig calculates that school districts need $900 million more than the governor’s new budget calls for to maintain the momentum of recent reforms in curriculum, increased salaries for teachers and other improvements designed to restore California schools to leadership among the nation’s schools. That’s a high price, but excellence doesn’t come at bargain prices. The money must be found.

A major legislative package, co-authored by Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) and Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), would provide $300 million to raise teacher pay, reduce class size in elementary and high schools, expand summer school, improve textbooks, upgrade school libraries and make other investments.

The measures would provide $600 million more to maintain state aid for big-city districts, money for school buses in rural districts and special programs for gifted, remedial, handicapped, poor and minority children throughout the state. Without that state aid for special needs, California’s children, especially poor youngsters in big cities, will lose ground.

Vasconcellos, chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, says that he will produce a plan next week showing where the money would come from. He says that it is not feasible to fund the schools at the expense of other programs in the state budget, and the governor’s emergency reserve is off-limits. But he also believes that the state can raise the funds and that, facing a choice between marking time--and gambling on losing ground in the struggle for better schools--and moving ahead on schedule, Californians will choose to move ahead.

In a recent speech, James A. Baker III, the U.S. secretary of the Treasury, said that many states will get windfalls under the new federal income-tax code, and he said he hoped that they would use the money for education. That, and the familiar treasure from what Sacramento calls “revenue enhancers”--closing loopholes in the tax laws and raising fees--is where Vasconcellos has started his search.

The partnership of Deukmejian, Honig and the Legislature nearly fell apart early this year. Honig complained loudly that the governor’s budget could not sustain the reform effort. The governor took offense, as though he had not done anything for education when he had in fact done much.

The new bills say in effect that nothing has a higher claim on tax dollars than a school system fit to equip California youth to take the state into the 21st Century. That should be a cause around which the old partnership can rally.