Driver Training Yields to Veto by Deukmejian : Education: Lack of funding forces school districts throughout the state to eliminate classroom and behind-the-wheel programs for teen-agers.

High school driver training classes have been eliminated or cut back throughout the state as the result of a $21.2-million budget veto by Gov. George Deukmejian in July.

Leslie McCage, of the state Department of Education, said Monday that “most districts have closed the door on the program” this fall. About 250,000 pupils in 950 high schools across the state took driver training last year.

Ramon Cortines, superintendent of schools in San Francisco, where driver training has been abolished, called the governor’s action a travesty.

“The research shows that kids with consistent behind-the-wheel training have fewer accidents than those who don’t have the training,” Cortines said. “With more immigrants coming to California from all over the world who don’t know U.S. driving habits, we need more driver training, not less.

“Kids will drive anyway and we’ll all be in danger. I think it is a travesty not to look at the welfare of the entire state,” he added.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is offering driver training to less than half the usual number of students who take the course, while most districts in Los Angeles County have dropped the program. In Orange County, five school districts have dropped driver training while nine others have decided to keep it.

When Deukmejian signed the final state budget on July 31, he vetoed a $21.2-million appropriation for driver training classes. The governor said he favored behind-the-wheel instruction but that it should be paid for by Proposition 98 money, not by general state revenues.

Proposition 98 is the constitutional change approved by voters two years ago that guarantees public schools and community colleges about 40% of the state General Fund each year.

Department of Education officials say Deukmejian had no authority to veto the appropriation because it comes from money collected for traffic violations and is earmarked by law for driver training classes.

“It was a flagrant abuse of his authority,” said department spokeswoman Susan Lange.

Cynthia Katz, assistant director of the Department of Finance, said the governor had the right to veto the item and did so because “we had a $3.6-billion budget problem, which education was not a participant in solving.”

Ted Redenius, of the California Assn. for Safety Education, said Deukmejian vetoed the item because of “the antagonism between the governor and (State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill) Honig.

Redenius predicted that one or more school districts will sue to restore the funds.

As word of Deukmejian’s action began to circulate around the state, many school districts dropped driver training, which usually consists of six or eight hours of behind-the-wheel instruction in the 10th or llth grade. This follows 10 to 12 weeks of classroom driver education.

A teen-ager who has completed driver education and behind-the-wheel training successfully can obtain a driver’s license at age 16, but must wait until 18 otherwise.

“It’s among the most important courses we have in the curriculum, as far as the kids are concerned,” said Sen. Ralph C. Dills (D-Gardena), a longtime driver training supporter. “When they get to be 16, they really want that license.”

Richard Nicholson, a curriculum consultant for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, said that only Montebello and a few others districts in the county are continuing the program.

The Los Angeles Unified School District will conduct a “minimal program” this year, said Fred English, who has supervised driver education for 19 years. Last year, 28,500 Los Angeles high school students took driver training but that number will be cut to 13,000 this year unless a new governor and Legislature restore the money in January.

Los Angeles would have dropped the instruction altogether, English said, but the district employs 32 full-time driving instructors who were not sent layoff notices in time to meet state legal requirements and for whom no other jobs are available.

In Orange County, the program has been dropped by high schools in the Fullerton, Garden Grove, Irvine, Los Alamitos and Tustin districts, said Wendy Margarita, director of business services for the Orange County Department of Education. The program is still available in the Anaheim, Brea, Huntington Beach, Placentia, San Juan Capistrano, Laguna Beach, Newport-Mesa, Orange and Santa Ana districts.

In Ventura County, several districts plan to move driver training to adult education programs, as a “community service” class and charge fees for instruction, said Mike Hernandez, of the Oxnard Union High School District.

However, Paul Smith, an attorney for the state Department of Education, said such action isprobably illegal because legislation must be approved before fees can be charged for activities that are part of the regular school program.

Some districts, such as San Diego, eliminated driver training long ago, saying it was too expensive.