Wilson Attacks Teachers Union : Budget: Governor says UTLA is brainwashing students by making them write letters protesting funding cuts. Officials say pupils are free to write whatever they wish.

Calling it “brainwashing” and pressure that won’t faze him, Gov. Pete Wilson lashed out Wednesday at members of the United Teachers-Los Angeles union for urging schoolchildren to write letters criticizing him for the amount of education funding in the state budget.

In a speech to the California School Boards Assn., the governor cited a letter written by a third-grade Chatsworth student as an example of such pressure. The letter, which Wilson read aloud, said: “Dear Gov. Wilson: If no one likes you then no one will vote for you. The teachers are going to go on strike. You better shape up or bye-bye you’re out of there.”

Franz Wisner, the governor’s associate press secretary, estimated that Wilson has received more than 10,000 letters, most in a similar critical vein, written by students as part of what UTLA members said was a “civics lesson.”

As he has before, Wilson defended his school funding, saying that the 1992-93 state budget, adopted two weeks ago, 63 days late, contains the same level of spending per pupil as the year before and provides for enrollment growth.

“That unhappily is not all that we would like,” Wilson said, “but it is the best that we can do under the circumstances.”

He emphasized that the current two-year recession has caused deep cuts in virtually every other state service area.

He said the UTLA’s letter-writing campaign amounted to “pressure tactics that cannot work because we cannot invent money.” To give the schools more, he said, it would have been necessary to make even deeper budget cuts in such areas as health care.

Asked to comment on Wilson’s remarks, UTLA President Helen Bernstein said: “Young people in this state feel cheated. They, along with every other citizen, have a democratic right to contact their representatives, including the governor, to let them know how they feel.

“I understand the governor feels attacked. He probably was. These students are sitting in overcrowded, non-air-conditioned classrooms with not enough books and supplies to go around.”

Bernstein said the UTLA, representing 35,000 teachers and other personnel in the Los Angeles Unified School District, “will continue to advocate what’s good for children. Wouldn’t it be nice if the governor would join us?”

Wilson noted that some parents are complaining that their children are being used as political pawns in the union’s letter-writing campaign and he said the complaints are justified.

He read portions of a letter sent to Bernstein that said, “My minor child is not your political pawn to brainwash in the name of education. You did no less than deny him his freedom of speech and freedom of thought.”

Wilson added that he knew the school board association had a “longstanding tradition of frowning on that kind of brainwashing of children and exploitation of them for any purpose.”

Union teachers said the letter-writing campaign is merely a civics lesson and students can write whatever they wish.

On the Labor Day weekend, several thousand teachers staged a mock funeral motorcade to protest the state’s level of education funding. The demonstration impeded vehicle traffic around Los Angeles International Airport for several hours. The protest was part of the union’s campaign to stave off deep pay cuts proposed for teachers and all other school district employees.

Thousands of letters were sealed in a coffin that was delivered to the state Capitol.