Deukmejian Eases Stand on School Program Cuts After Heated Debate

Gov. George Deukmejian backed away from his plan to eliminate four special education programs for mentally gifted and other students Tuesday after several hours of Assembly debate in which state school Supt. Bill Honig repeatedly attacked his proposed budget.

Deukmejian, in shifting his position, said he is willing to allow school districts to decide whether to keep the programs or begin reducing class sizes. The governor had proposed phasing out the programs to pay for smaller class sizes in the first and second grades.

The governor’s office said Deukmejian’s change of heart--announced after several hours of heated debate in the Democrat-controlled Assembly--came in response to a letter signed by more than 30 California school superintendents urging him to take the action.

Honig, during an often dramatic 5 1/2-hour hearing, repeatedly attacked the governor’s education budget, saying it would force school districts to lay off teachers, cut back on classroom instruction, postpone textbook purchases and make other painful spending reductions.

Assembly Republicans also got their licks in, accusing Honig, who has been warring with the GOP governor over education funding since January, of being a poor administrator who has failed to produce results in the classroom despite billions of extra dollars appropriated for education programs in recent years.

Honig stood his ground for nearly two hours, sparring verbally with Republicans in what obviously was a well-orchestrated attempt to discredit the school superintendent’s programs. Honig has often been mentioned as a possible rival to Deukmejian in the 1990 gubernatorial race.

A majority of Republicans ultimately wound up siding with Democrats against Deukmejian because, according to GOP Assembly Leader Pat Nolan of Glendale, they feel that the state’s fiscal situation will not be as bleak during the next budget year as the governor had originally forecast.

The developments took place as the Assembly met in an extraordinary session as a “committee of the whole,” the last of three such hearings called by Democrats to turn the public spotlight on the most controversial elements of Deukmejian’s proposed $39.3-billion budget for the fiscal year that will begin July 1.

The two earlier hearings centered on the governor’s proposed $300-million cut in health services for the poor and elimination of the state’s worker safety program. As in those hearings, the Assembly on Tuesday amended the budget to restore the proposed cuts after Democrats called a series of witnesses to make emotional appeals in behalf of the threatened programs.

One of the witnesses was David Tokofsky, a teacher at Marshall High School in Los Angeles who recently coached a team of inner-city students to victory in a statewide academic competition. Tokofsky, 26, caused a hush in the frequently boisterous Assembly chamber when he explained how passionately he took his responsibilities as a teacher but finally was beaten down by low pay and lack of incentives. He said he plans to quit teaching.

Tokofsky, who is bilingual and an honors graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, said that after four years of teaching he is earning a salary of less than $20,000 a year. He said that during his four years, he was assigned to teach Spanish, English as a second language, government, mathematics, economics, politics, reading and soccer. He said he routinely worked 12-hour days.

“The schools are jokes,” Tokofsky said.

Another witness was Meuy Choy Saeteurn, a 14-year-old Laotian refugee and mother of two. She is a freshman at a Sacramento high school, where she said she earns straight A’s and maintains a perfect attendance record. The young woman, speaking in near perfect English, pleaded for continued state support of the Gifted and Talented Education program, also known as GATE, which she said provided her with advanced academic training and made her optimistic that she will be able to go to college to pursue a career in mathematics and science.

Lawmakers applauded when she finished her statement.

The GATE program is one of six “categorical” programs that Deukmejian proposed eliminating in his budget.

Deukmejian, in a statement released by his office, said he would agree to allow local school districts to decide whether to keep GATE and three other programs: the Miller-Unruh Reading program, a special financial aid program for school districts with economically disadvantaged students and the Native American Indian Education Program.

Consolidation of Programs

Deukmejian’s original budget proposal called for consolidating those four programs, plus two financial aid programs for urban school districts, into one “block grant” program that would be phased out over two years, with $60 million a year in savings going to reduce first- and second-grade class sizes.

The new proposal will be contained in legislation carried by Assemblyman Bill Leonard (R-Redlands). Leonard said his office received an unusually high volume of letters from parents and school administrators protesting the governor’s action.

Democrats, after being surprised by Deukmejian’s policy shift, recessed the lower house to discuss their strategy in private and later voted to restore $72 million to fully fund the six special education programs.

Deukmejian also proposed a number of other budget cuts in programs for kindergarten through high school grades.

The governor proposed saving $214 million by increasing state aid to school districts by only 1.1% to cover inflationary cost increases--about half the amount required by law.

Desegregation Programs

Democrats also contend that the governor’s budget is about $22.3 million short of what will be required to fund court-ordered desegregation programs.

Besides adding funds for those programs, Assembly Democrats--with Republican support--amended the budget proposal with another $40.4 million to finance community college programs. As he did with the public schools, Deukmejian cut in half the cost of living increase the colleges are entitled to under law.

Deukmejian has repeatedly defended his budget proposal for public schools on the grounds that the spending increase will amount to 4% when both state and local funding sources are counted. He said he considered that fair during a tight budget year when he was proposing spending increases of less than 2% for state government overall.

Honig, in addressing the lawmakers, said the public school system now needs “$1 billion just to stay even” and that the governor’s budget provides only about $400 million. “The cuts that education will be forced to make are not minor. They slice at the heart of our programs,” he said. “We are not kidding.”

The schools chief said the budget threatens efforts to upgrade the school system that have been under way for the past four years. “We still have textbooks that say ‘One day man will walk on the moon,’ ” Honig said.

Republicans in turn attacked Honig for administering what they claimed was a $19-billion-a-year school system top-heavy with administrators and other non-teaching personnel.

“Only a trickle of the billions we pour in actually gets to teachers and pupils,” GOP Leader Nolan complained.

One Republican after another rose to spar with Honig over the number of administrators in the school system as well as what they contend are poor test score results being registered by students. But Honig held his ground, answering each question exhaustively. Finally, after nearly two hours, both Republicans and Democrats seemed to wear out, and Honig was excused.