Brown Presents Her Campaign Plank on School Reform

Declaring that education is her passion, state Treasurer Kathleen Brown proposed a fundamental overhaul of California’s public school system Thursday with the goal of preparing children to live, work and compete in “the world and workplace of tomorrow.”

Laying out the second major plank in her prospective campaign for governor, Brown, a Democrat, assailed Republican Gov. Pete Wilson for taking three years “to unveil a so-called education plan that . . . offered no new ideas, no specifics and no funding.”

Brown’s reform plan includes several proposals that would break new ground in California, but have been touted nationally by education experts for years and are being tried in other states. They include a program of vocational training and apprenticeships in high schools, a form of detention school for students expelled for bringing firearms on campus and reform of the state’s bilingual education system.

The state school system, which absorbs nearly $14 billion annually in state money to teach 5.2 million students, is failing California just when it most desperately needs a smart work force, Brown said in an address to the Comstock Club, an organization of business and professional leaders.

“Here is the stark truth,” said Brown, a onetime member of the Los Angeles Board of Education. “If we’re going to get California moving again we are going to have to reform, rebuild and renew our education system.”

At the base of her 12-point program is the creation of a state master plan for education of pupils in kindergarten through high school similar to the master plan for higher education developed under her father, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Sr., when he was governor of California in the 1960s.

“For all its complexity and size, California’s kindergarten-12 education system has absolutely no blueprint for the future,” Brown said. “I couldn’t believe it was true, but it is the fact.”

Such a plan would set clear goals and standards for student performance, school safety, programs to prepare students for the work force, teacher improvement and involvement of parents in their children’s education. She proposed stronger emphasis on local control of school programs and restrictions on how much districts could spend on administration.

Brown, noting that California’s dropout rate is one of the highest in the nation, said a goal of the plan would be to raise the high school graduation rate to 95%.

Three key conditions must be met before school reform will work, she said: Schools must be safe and drug-free, there must be accountability for how tax money is spent, and schools must be run by parents, teachers and principals, “not legislators and bureaucrats downtown.”

In September, Brown began laying out detailed programs that will be part of her campaign for governor. Also planning to seek the Democratic gubernatorial nomination is state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, who also is expected to make education reform a fundamental part of his campaign. Garamendi had planned a major address on education in Southern California last weekend, but canceled it because of the fires.

Brown is expected to make a third major issues address in December, on crime.

On Tuesday--the day that California voters soundly rejected a school voucher program--Wilson revealed a five-point education program and appointed the president of the Education Commission of the States to serve as his “ambassador” in dealing with others on education reform in California.

Wilson’s plan called for making schools safe from violence, raising educational standards, cutting bureaucracy, providing incentives such as merit pay for teachers and getting technology into the classroom.

Brown’s specific proposals include:

* A “California job-ready program” in every California high school in partnership with businesses and community colleges to give students the options of taking a traditional college preparatory program, a special job-preparation program or a combination of the two. This approach has been favored by business leaders and tried with success in states such as Oregon and Texas.

* A $300-million state bond issue for three major purposes: to buy computers and other equipment needed to modernize classrooms; to create special county disciplinary schools for youths caught carrying firearms into class and who otherwise would be released on probation, and to buy metal detectors and other security devices to make the school environment safer.

* Tougher penalties for carrying guns in or near a school and expanded drug and alcohol education programs in schools.

* Reducing school district administrative costs by an average 13% with the savings being used to finance operations of the disciplinary schools, job-ready and drug-education programs, and others. The limit on the administrative spending is favored by teachers unions, which say that bloated school administrative bureaucracies siphon off money that should be used in the classroom.

* Creation of a “California Century School Program” to reward schools that make the most progress toward preparing students for the work force of the next century. Financial incentives will be offered to encourage schools to improve.

* Creation of contracts with parents to get them more involved in their children’s schooling, and elimination of the current 100-campus cap on the number of “charter” schools in the state in which parents, teachers and community leaders customize the education program.

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Times education writer Sandy Banks contributed to this story.