Sparks Likely at State School Board Meeting : Education: Members are expected to discuss a memo that calls for more power to set policy. Supt. Bill Honig sees the move as an intrusion into the workings of his department.

A long-simmering controversy over who should control California education policy--the State Board of Education or State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig--is likely to reach a flash point when the state board meets here this week.

The 11-member board, long frustrated by an inability to affect major policy decisions, is reaching for more authority to prepare and review the budget, approve high-level appointments in the Department of Education and adopt guidelines that are sent to the state’s 1,000 school districts.

A “memo of understanding” prepared for the board by special counsel Howard L. Dickstein calls for a greatly expanded role for the board in formulating and even carrying out educational policy.

The memo calls for board review of top Department of Education personnel, a key board role in preparing and overseeing the annual $24-billion education budget and board approval of all “personal service” contracts over $20,000, among many other matters.

Honig called the proposals “just ridiculous. That gets the board into day-to-day administration of the department and that’s not the board’s mission.”

The superintendent said the memo was the work of a “faction” on the board “that doesn’t want to work this thing out--they just want to cause mischief.” Honig also said the memo, if implemented, “would violate the Constitution and what’s in state law now.”

For four months Honig and State Board President Joseph Carrabino have fought over these issues, in public and in private, an exchange that has escalated into name-calling .

Honig operates as an “education czar,” Carrabino has said. “He runs a one-man show. There aren’t enough checks and balances and it can’t continue that way.”

On several occasions Carrabino has contended that loose fiscal controls have created a potential for “rip-offs” or corruption or “misuse” of the $24 billion that the Department of Education handles each year.

But he has offered no evidence of wrongdoing.

A furious Honig has called these “McCarthy-like comments,” referring to the late Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wis.), whose attacks on accused communists often lacked supporting evidence.

However, behind the hot words and the clash of personalities there are some basic issues.

Neither the State Constitution nor state law makes it clear just how much authority the State Board of Education is supposed to have.

“The exact role and authority of the superintendent in comparison to that of the board has been unclear since the Legislature founded the department (of education) in 1921,” the Little Hoover Commission said in a report published last February.

The only authority granted to the board in the Constitution is approval of textbooks and other curriculum materials in kindergarten through eighth grade.

The state Education Code says the superintendent should carry out policies that are determined by the board, and several rulings from the attorney general’s office over the years have agreed that the superintendent should implement board policy. But in practice, the superintendent, not the board, has the clout.

“The board is probably right about the Constitution and the statutes,” said a veteran Sacramento legislative member who asked not to be identified. “The trouble is, nobody in the Legislature gives a damn what the board thinks.”

Dickstein, the board’s temporary attorney, believes the courts may have to decide the question.

“This may be an issue the judiciary should decide,” he said. “It’s a legitimate historical question on which there ought to be a definitive court decision.”

The problem of divided authority is made worse by the tension created by having an elected superintendent and a part-time board made up entirely of appointees by the governor.

A dozen other states have similar arrangements but most have small populations.

“The wonder is that the board and the chief school officer have been as civil as they have over the years because the structure is absurd,” said James W. Guthrie, professor of education at UC Berkeley.

“The superintendent is a highly visible official who, by some interpretations, is supposed to be subordinate to a gubernatorially nominated board,” Guthrie said. “That’s a major structural impediment to effective educational leadership in California.

This problem is compounded when the superintendent is from one political party and board members are from another. Honig calls himself a liberal Democrat. All of the current board members were appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian and most are conservative Republicans.

The feud between Deukmejian and Honig that has marked most of the eight years each has been in office has made matters even worse.

Finally, the personal animosity that has developed between Honig and Carrabino, an emeritus UCLA management professor who has been on the board four years and its president for the last year, makes a reasoned solution to the problems more difficult.

“They are two strong personalities, both of whom have a way with words,” Marion McDowell, vice president of the board, said tactfully.

The clash between Honig and Carrabino will be renewed Thursday and Friday, when the board is expected to discuss the proposed “memo of understanding” drawn up by Dickstein.

The memo calls for significantly increased powers for the board, including the authority to:

* Review the performance of all high-level Department of Education personnel, in executive session.

* Participate in the formation of the education budget each year.

* Approve all outside contracts in excess of $20,000 and all budget line-item transfers over $10,000.

* Make appointments to four high-level Department of Education jobs that are presently unfilled and have the final say over Honig’s nominees for other top department jobs.

* Approve all major policy guidelines before Honig or other administrators send them to local schools.

* Hire more staff for the board, which presently has only one professional employee--executive director Thomas Bogetich--and three clerical workers.

* Obtain office space for board members, who now have no desks, secretaries or telephones and sometimes must conduct board business from pay telephones in the lobby of the Department of Education building.

Honig agrees that the board should have more office space and should review major policy guidelines before they are circulated but he draws the line at allowing board members to participate in day-to-day administration of the 1,400-employee department.

“They want to play with the trappings of power when they’ve got the real power right in front of them and can’t see it,” he said, referring to the board’s role in approving textbooks, curriculum guidelines, teacher training improvements and other educational matters.

Honig is convinced that the “memo of understanding” reflects the thinking of a few members who “want to clip my wings” and he does not believe a board majority will support the memo’s demands.

“I think I’ve made every effort to get along” with the board, he said, but “the board is going to have to decide whether it’s going to be a political hit organization or work together to improve education in this state.”

“I’ll give them a chance to do the right thing” at next week’s meeting, Honig added, “but if they accept this document, then I’ll do what I have to do.”

This probably means the superintendent will not implement the board’s new policies. That in turn, “would ripen the issue for litigation,” Dickstein said.

NEXT STEP

A committee of the State Board of Education will begin considering proposed changes in who should control California educational policy at a meeting in Sacramento on Thursday. The full board will discuss the issue on Friday, but may not reach a decision. If the board continues to seek more authority now held by State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig, the matter will probably end up in a court battle.