LOS ANGELES TIMES / INTERVIEW : Maureen DiMarco : Taking the Heat Over the State’s Education System

Last summer, from July to September, the state of California operated without a budget, while the Legislature and Gov. Pete Wilson engaged in a mano a mano centered primarily on the governor’s demands for cuts in the proposed education budget. The stalemate was resolved when the Legislature finally capitulated, accepting Wilson’s plan and slashing $1 billion in education spending. On Friday, the governor proposed his new budget, with more cuts in education, and many in the Legislature now see a sequel developing--one rivaling last year’s impasse.

There is much debate over what’s gone wrong with education funding in California, but little division over the cause. Most observers agree it was 1978’s property-tax cutting measure, Proposition 13, that started a long decline. Exacerbating the problem are two factors--a huge spurt in the number of school-age kids and a faltering economy that created a dramatic loss of tax revenue.

In 1978, California ranked 17th nationwide in education spending per pupil. Today, it’s 36th and still dropping. California produces more than half of the computers made in the 50 states, yet in numbers of computers available to students it ranks in the bottom 10. Since 1990, the state has cut funding for higher education by 20%. Now teachers in the state’s largest school system, the Los Angeles Unified School District, are set to strike next month.

Education and child welfare were two issues Wilson stressed in his 1990 campaign, and one of his first acts as governor was to create a new Cabinet-level position--secretary of child development and education. He chose a Democrat to fill that chair. She’s Maureen DiMarco, 44, a former Garden Grove School Board member and longtime child and education activist. Yet educators who applauded her appointment soon became her most voracious critics. The state’s elected school superintendent, Bill Honig, has blasted her for supporting Wilson’s efforts to balance the budget by trimming education funds. Others go farther, accusing DiMarco of abandoning her commitment to children in the face of pressure from hard- ball politicians.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, complains DiMarco. She believes her critics don’t understand how serious the state’s financial problems are, and how hard the recession has hit California. It’s something she understands very well--her husband, Richard, is an aerospace engineer who was laid off last summer and still hasn’t found a job. DiMarco says she can endure the criticism of educators, because she is steadfast in her belief that she and Wilson are acting responsibly to ensure the future of education in California.

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Question: How does one formulate a strategy for managing an education system that is growing by 200,000 students each year, and has less and less money to support it?

Answer: Well, I think you have to start with the facts. It’s a myth that the governor has cut funds to education--each year he has been in office, the funding has been increased. The cuts that have been referred to were cuts from increases we had proposed before the deficit grew so deep. We increased education funding in the current budget by a billion dollars over the previous year. We fully covered enrollment growth, plus a little bit more, in order to hold our schools even. No other area of the budget fared anywhere near as good as did the budget for education. School districts still have a tough time of it. We have maintained the amount per pupil each year. But the districts have salary schedules, where employees get pay increases each year regardless of anything that happens. Then the light bill goes up, the heating bill goes up, et cetera. On average, a school district needs about a 3% increase in funds to stay even with the year before, so they have had to tighten down.

Q: We are facing a teachers’ strike here in Los Angeles next month, and the school district says it doesn’t have the money to even keep paying teachers their current salaries. What’s your take on what’s gone wrong with the L.A. schools?

A: Their problem is that over the last nine years, the school district received from the state a little over 49% in cost-of-living adjustments. In the same time period, they gave out, in salary increases, over 90%. When you spend your new money at almost twice the rate you are receiving it, you are going to get in trouble. And that, fundamentally, is what the problem is in Los Angeles.

Q: What is the state’s responsibility in resolving the problems of the L.A. schools? Shouldn’t you be trying to help them achieve a resolution to avert the strike?

A: The responsibility of the state is to equitably fund education at the local level. But I don’t think you can hold the state up as the bad guy when a thousand other school districts manage their resources and don’t make commitments beyond their funding. I don’t think the state has the obligation to say to a school district that is spending its money far to fast, “Well, that’s OK. We’ll take care of it.” That’s not fair to the other kids in the state. And I’m not against teacher salaries being higher--don’t hear that. I think it’s something we need to have an absolute commitment to. But I don’t think you can spend money you don’t have.

Q: There are critics who say you have gone from being a great champion of children and education to an apologist for the governor. What do you say to those people who accuse you of selling out?

A: When the governor announced that he was going to appoint me to this position, he prophetically cautioned people that the job didn’t come with a magic wand, and that I was not going to be able to erase the effects of difficult economic times. I think there were those who felt that, somehow, I could shield education from the ravages of the recession. I believe in my heart that my advocacy for kids has not changed one bit--if anything, it’s stronger. I have to live within the world as it exists, and balance those needs.

Look at our record: We have increased funding for the schools. We can’t increase it as fast as some would wish us to do, and as fast as we would like to. I know there are those who are disappointed that I couldn’t make the problems go away. But if I felt that the governor’s commitment to children had wavered in any way, I’d be working somewhere else. Pete Wilson has been dealt an incredibly difficult set of circumstances. Others might have been tempted to sway away from their commitment--he has not.

Q: What do you expect from the Clinton Administration in terms of help with education in California?

A: Gov. Clinton was chairing the National Governors Assn. when they formulated a package called the National Education Goals. He’s very committed to that, and to the conditions of kids. He recognizes that school reform, in and of itself, will be inadequate if we don’t deal with the conditions of kids. I think Clinton will bring the health needs and the economic needs of children into the same discussion with the educational needs, because they impact one another. So I am very optimistic that this will be a harmonious partnership.

Gov. Wilson has been the national leader, in my opinion, on taking that agenda forward. His program, Healthy Start, is an interagency program that coordinates services to address children’s health, economic, and educational needs. We expect that we can provide the Clinton Administration with some good information, because we are already ahead of them.

Q: How much of the problem in education in California stems from the fact that there are so many non-English speaking children, speaking so many different languages?

A: Yes, in my own school district, Garden Grove, there are 89 different languages. I reject that as a problem, though. My attitude is that the wonderfully rich and diverse group of children we have out there, who come from many cultures, speaking many languages, is really California’s greatest raw-diamond mine. It is the potential for our future.

If we develop those raw diamonds--if we polish them, and if we set them correctly--they will shine. But too many people see the raw diamonds as troublesome rocks in our path. If we develop our rich potential of youngsters, as we have always done in the past, California is going to have the most multicultural, multilingual work force in the world, and when you’re working in a global society, how magnificent!

Q: Does California have to abandon its policy of universally affordable higher education?

A: No. California has a Master Plan for education, built on three fundamental principles: high quality, access and low cost. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would suggest we sacrifice anything on the quality side. We also want to keep full access, so that every person in the state has the opportunity for higher education. That is our economic future.

The issue then comes down to what you consider low cost. We have been blessed with a generous state-subsidized higher education for everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. In these incredibly difficult times of $25-billion budget deficits, I think you will see us moving more toward a system based on ability to pay. We have to assure that those who can’t pay will still have access to the system, but we have no choice but to make sure that those who can afford it pay their share, so that we can maintain the commitment to all.

Q: What do you say to the parent who has no economic alternative to the public schools, but is frustrated by the level of education their child is receiving?

A: I say that they should get very involved. First and foremost, they should get involved with their own youngster. The key factor to academic success is often a key adult in a child’s life who continues to encourage, support and move them along. That’s not a substitute for an excellent education, but it can make an education that might be seemingly mediocre into a world-class education. Because it’s there. In some places, it takes a little more for the parents and the child to dig it out, but if the will is there, the child will be supported and educated.

The second thing is to get involved in the school. There are a thousand different ways to support and encourage the school. Schools hear the criticism and rarely hear the thanks. Even if you are a working parent, there are many things you can do that are supportive and that can create a better school. And they should vote. The school-board elections have ridiculously low turnouts, and yet everyone cares about education. Voting for the people who will control that school system is a critical piece of parental involvement.

Q: What about the parent who is thinking of taking their child out of public schools and into a private school? What would you say to them that might make them reconsider?

A: I would hope that before they made that decision, they had gone to their child’s public school and had evaluated it. There is an oft-held notion that because it’s private, it’s automatically better. That isn’t always the case. Don’t assume that the public schools don’t have resources your child requires. Often it’s just that no one has bothered to ask. In Los Angeles, I can’t think of a need or a desire of a youngster that the school district doesn’t have a program for. They have a marvelous system of magnet schools and special programs, as well as the ability to move students across boundary lines for all kinds of different reasons.

Q: Are you saying that, at least for the L.A. schools, this much talked-about idea of choice in the schools already exists?

A: Oh yes, and in other school districts. That’s one of those myths--that there is no choice in public education. A lot of parents don’t know about it, and one of the criticisms I have is that, as a public school system, we often don’t tell the parents about the options that are there. But there is a great deal of choice in the public school system.

Q: Is there any bright spot--anything that gives you hope about the economy and the future of education in this state?

A: Once again the governor’s budget has treated education as its first-and-foremost priority. It gives me hope that as the economy does start to turn around, as the leadership on the economic front starts to take hold, that we will see a stronger revenue base, and the state will have both the resources and the commitment to get our education system moving in the right direction.