Deukmejian Vetoes School Testing Funds : Legislation: Governor says money for widely hailed CAP program should come from Prop. 98. He also strikes down bill expanding time limit on malathion spraying lawsuits.

Gov. George Deukmejian on Sunday vetoed a bill to restore $9 million for the California Assessment Program, removing what many educators regard as an important tool in measuring public school performance and in keeping the pressure on for educational reform.

The CAP veto was one of dozens Deukmejian issued during the last day--in the last year of his two terms in office--on which he could sign or reject legislation.

In a letter accompanying the veto, Deukmejian said he supports “an assessment program . . . such as CAP,” but insisted that the money should come from Proposition 98 funds, not from general state revenues.

Proposition 98, a state constitutional change approved by voters two years ago, stipulates that public schools and community colleges receive roughly 40% of the state’s General Fund.

Deukmejian first eliminated CAP funding when he signed the state budget on July 31. The Legislature sought to restore the money, but with his veto on Sunday, funding was denied. The governor contended that a bill he supported, defeated in the Senate Education Committee, would have restored the CAP money from Proposition 98 funds.

Deputy Supt. of Public Instruction Joe Holsinger said the law would not have allowed the testing program to be financed from Proposition 98 funds “unless the Proposition 98 base is recalculated and the governor has refused to do that.”

State schools chief Bill Honig was out of the country, but issued a statement calling the veto “a sad day for students and their parents.”

Honig said CAP “is widely acknowledged as the best student achievement testing system in the country.” By vetoing the funding measure, said Honig, who has battled the governor for years over school money, Deukmejian “has secured his place in California history as the anti-education governor.”

CAP tests all California third, sixth, eighth and 12th graders in reading, writing, mathematics, science and history or social studies each year.

The tests measure a school or school district’s performance relative to other schools and districts, not individual student performance. Many districts use other tests to judge individual achievement.

Tied closely to new curriculum guidelines and textbooks, CAP has been considered an important part of the educational improvements that have taken place in California in recent years.

“You can’t improve if you don’t know how well you’re doing,” said Dale C. Carlson, director of the assessment program.

Allan Odden, professor of education at USC, said the program is “at the cutting edge in the national testing field.”

As a result of the governor’s veto, Carlson said, the 12th-grade writing test, scheduled for late November and early December, will be canceled. Department of Education officials hope to find a way to offer the third-, sixth- and eighth-grade tests scheduled for spring.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dianne Feinstein has said she would restore the money for CAP if she is elected. Republican candidate Pete Wilson has not stated a position.

Meanwhile, in other action, the governor vetoed a bill to extend the statute of limitations for people to sue the state for illnesses, injuries or deaths allegedly caused by malathion spraying in fighting the Mediterranean fruit fly menace.

In his veto message, Deukmejian said there is “overwhelming scientific and medical evidence” that malathion “poses no unreasonable risk to the public and our environment.” He said the proposed legislation could generate “unwarranted, but significant, litigation” based on allegations of damaging health effects of the spraying.

Authored by Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), the rejected measure would have allowed a person to sue the state within one year after the discovery of the condition instead of one year after the spraying occurred.

The governor earlier signed into law six other bills relating to fighting the Medfly, including one that seeks alternatives to malathion spraying.

Among his final acts on legislation, Deukmejian also:

* Vetoed a bill by Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) to give a sales tax break to the purchasers of new automobiles that produce less air pollution and use less gasoline, starting in 1993. The governor said he was concerned the bill would “greatly complicate” the administration of the sales tax, and establish an “inadvisable precedent” to extend this type of treatment to a variety of other products.

* Vetoed another bill by Sen. Hart to allow judges to place corporations convicted of felonies or serious misdemeanor crimes on probation in addition to fines and other punishment. The governor said he believed the bill was overly broad and could be used for any felony crime, including first and only offenses.

* Vetoed a bill to require health insurance plans to offer coverage for drug and alcohol dependency treatment programs. Deukmejian said this was specialized coverage for which the need and the availability should be left up to the consumer and the private sector. The bill was sponsored by Assemblyman Terry Friedman (D-Los Angeles).

* Vetoed a bill by Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) to report crimes that occur on college and university campuses to the state Department of Justice on an annual basis. The governor said this requirement would work a hardship on smaller private schools that may not have the capacity to compile these statistics.

* Signed into law a bill by Sen. William Craven (R-San Diego) to make it a crime to publish any campaign advertisement containing an unauthorized signature with the intent of deceiving the voters. The bill was introduced after Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange) was charged with mailing hundreds of campaign letters in 1986 bearing the signature of then-President Reagan. The charges were later dropped.

* Signed into law a bill by Sen. William Lockyer (D-Hayward) to require the courts to suspend, restrict or delay for one year the driving privilege of anyone under the age of 21 but over the age of 13 who is convicted of offenses related to using alcohol or drugs while operating a motor vehicle or vessel.

The fiscally conservative governor set a veto record of more than 2,250 bills during his two terms in office, topping by far the eight-year rejection marks of either former Govs. Edmund G. Brown Jr. or Ronald Reagan. Reagan vetoed 981 bills; Brown’s total was 739.

As of Sunday evening, Deukmejian had vetoed 396 bills passed in the 1990 legislative session--a one-year record--and signed 1,639 others. There were about 30 bills still left on his desk for action.

MALIBU CITYHOOD SETBACK: Gov. George Deukmejian has vetoed a measure that would have allowed Malibu to incorporate immediately. B1