Money Not the Answer to Schools’ Woes, Panel Says

A special commission created by Gov. George Deukmejian last year to study the state’s kindergarten-through-12th-grade school system released its final report Monday, concluding that “a lack of resources” is not responsible for the poor performance of many elementary and secondary schools.

This finding of the California Commission on Education Quality, drawn after 10 months of scrutiny, is likely to re-fuel the fight over school financing between the governor and state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig.

And although many of the study’s proposals are not new, at least one promises to be highly controversial--a recommendation to withhold full AFDC (Aid to Families With Dependent Children) payments from families that fail to send their children to school regularly.

On the broader issue of school financing, commission chairman and former San Francisco mayor George Christopher said, “It is not just a question of money. It is a question of method--how to implement (programs using) what money (schools already) have.”

But Honig, who has sparred with Deukmejian over the finance issue, said inadequate money for schools is the problem, and he faulted the commission for “ducking the issue.”

“The issue is not what to do (to improve schools) but what are you going to give us to support it?” Honig said at a press conference Monday. “It is OK to say ‘I’m for schools, I’m for reform.’ But if you don’t say ‘I’m willing to pay for it,’ what does it mean? It’s an empty gesture.”

Honig said he was “very supportive” of most of the changes advocated by the commission, and has been pushing many of them himself for the past several years. But he criticized the AFDC proposal as too “harsh.”

Last year, Deukmejian and Honig were embroiled in a dispute over how much money the schools need. Deukmejian argued that he had devoted more than 50% of the state budget to education, saying that was more than allocated by any previous Administration. But Honig said the rate of increase in spending on education still left California behind most major industrial states.

Honig Excluded

Deukmejian formed the commission to assess the effectiveness of the state’s education policies, and Honig was excluded from the panel.

In brief remarks to the commission Monday, Deukmejian said he was “anxious” to review the report and that “in time, you’ll see we’ll begin to implement these recommendations.” But he cautioned that because of the “boldness” of some of its recommendations, the commission will have to help explain to the public “the importance (of) and the reasoning behind” them.

The report offers 69 “common sense solutions” to improve school performance and efficiency, including recommendations to strengthen local school district authority and accountability and to improve school safety.

Only One Dissent

The 15-member commission included teachers, principals, businessmen and other educators, such as Wilson Riles, former state schools superintendent, whom Honig defeated in 1982.

Only one commission member, Sacramento school teacher Celia Jimenez, dissented in writing from the final report. She said in an interview Monday that she objected most strenuously to the proposal calling for reducing welfare payments to encourage school attendance, saying it would be wrong to “make people hurt more than they already are.”

“One way of encouraging attendance among low-income students--those who have been shown to be the most at risk of dropping out of school--is to reduce welfare benefits to parents who fail to take steps to insure that their children attend school as required by law,” the report stated. While acknowledging that this measure might appear “harsh,” the report said the potential consequences of “a lifetime of poverty” were far worse.

The proposal is similar to a bill proposed by Assemblyman Bill Leonard (R-Redlands) that had originally called for a $50 reduction in a family’s welfare check, that would be returned as soon as the child began attending school. But the bill was changed and now calls for a social worker to be assigned to help the family get the child back into school.

‘Thoughtful, Supportive’

Mary Anne Houx, president of the California School Boards Assn., praised the report’s findings as “thoughtful and supportive.” However, Ed Foglia, president of the California Teachers Assn., the state’s largest teacher organization, lambasted the commission for ignoring the “continuing problem of school funding.” He said several of the recommendations--notably the proposal to link welfare payments with school attendance--were unwise and indicative of “the whole approach by this Administration to really try to whack people who are less fortunate.”

In the area of finance, the report listed several proposals to improve fiscal accountability, such as requiring local districts to develop multiyear spending plans.

It also recommended establishing procedures that would allow the state to intervene in local districts that “fail to meet minimum fiscal management standards or minimum educational standards” in one or more schools. It said that in the worst cases, the state should appoint a trustee to oversee efforts to improve the schools in question.

In addition, the commission endorsed the idea of withholding a driver’s license from students who fail to meet minimal attendance and academic standards.

Nearly Impossible

On the issue of multiyear planning, Honig agreed that it would be beneficial but under current conditions nearly impossible for local districts to carry out because of “roller coaster” fluctuations in the level of state funding.

Local district officials agreed with Honig.

“It’s feasible but it would be very difficult” to do multiyear plans, said Henry Jones, budget director for the Los Angeles Unified School District. “Today the board is adopting a tentative budget for 1988-89 (even though) at this point we don’t know what the final funding level for our district will be next year.”