Candidates for Governor Vow Better Schools : Politics: In first three-way debate of major contenders, Wilson, Brown and Garamendi promise educators a return to excellence. But they differ on methods of funding.

In their first face-to-face campaign encounter, the three major candidates for governor in 1994 pledged Saturday to restore the excellence of California schools, but differed in their approaches.

Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and his two Democratic challengers, state Treasurer Kathleen Brown and Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, spoke before the governing council of the California Teachers Assn., a group generally more hospitable to Democrats than Republicans.

The forum was at times congenial, at times contentious and at times humorous, and it may be the last time in the campaign that all three participate in a debate format.

Although the discussion focused on education, participants also spoke about the devastating Northridge earthquake. Garamendi said that Californians must prepare to pay for rebuilding the Los Angeles region and that the effort most likely will involve increases in sales and gasoline taxes.

Offering his comments as a sample of leadership for today rather than proposals for action in the future, Garamendi said he had heard too many Californians beg the federal government for reconstruction funds, citing a meeting with President Clinton last week in which Wilson emphasized the need for federal aid.

“We will use our own means, our own money and if that means raising taxes to do it, we’ll do it,” Garamendi said.

“Fail to do it and all of this discussion is rhetoric. . . . The economy will falter, the spirit of California will be broken and we will not make it,” he said.

Afterward, Brown and Wilson said Garamendi’s proposals were premature because no one yet knows just how much reconstruction will cost. California should determine how much the federal government will provide before making specific proposals for spending at the state and local levels, they said.

“It’s important not to rush to judgment,” said Wilson, who is seeking a second term this year.

Brown said, “We send a lot of tax dollars to Washington and I think California’s entitled to some of that back.”

Brown said Garamendi’s idea of California pulling itself up by its bootstraps amounted to “an undisclosed tax increase from undisclosed sources to repair an undisclosed amount of damage.”

The CTA, which includes the United Teachers of Los Angeles, represents an estimated 230,000 present and retired teachers and often has been at odds with the Wilson Administration. The 1,500 officials took no action after the hourlong session at a San Francisco airport hotel, but will meet again in March to consider endorsing a candidate for governor.

It was the first big political event of the year--one that Wilson aides regarded as his first campaign appearance.

Between now and the June primary, the major battle is between Brown and Garamendi for the Democratic nomination to face Wilson in the fall campaign. Wilson is not expected to have any major opposition to his renomination in the GOP primary in June.

Brown reiterated the 13-point education program she outlined late last year and promised to revive the spirit of excellence in California education promoted by her father, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Sr., who served as governor from 1959 to 1966.

“There is absolutely no more important investment that we can make than in our kids,” she said. “That’s where it begins and that’s where it ends.”

Garamendi promoted himself as a hands-on governor as symbolized by his campaign, during which he will work in various people’s jobs throughout the state. Last week, he worked for most of a day with a Los Angeles street crew using shovels and crowbars to break up a sidewalk damaged in the earthquake.

He pledged that if he is elected governor he will spend at least five days every year working alongside teachers in classrooms.

All three said they would work to improve the quality of education and to give local schools more authority in developing their own programs. But Brown and Garamendi drew a warmer response from the delegates by declaring that “qualified, certified teachers” are at the heart of the effort.

Both oppose state support for voucher schools that could hire teachers who do not meet state standards required of public school teachers.

Wilson did not directly address the issue of voucher schools, but supported expansion of “charter” schools where teachers are “free of the micromanagement of the (state) education code.” There was no applause from the assembled teachers.

Wilson defended the Administration’s record on spending for education, saying he had had to make harsh cuts throughout the state budget in order to maintain spending for public education.

The only way to come up with new money is through economic recovery, he said.

Garamendi labeled Wilson’s approach as “wrong-headed,” saying that California cannot experience lasting economic recovery until schools are improved and are capable of educating and training a skilled, modern work force. That will require more money, he said.

CTA delegates cheered and applauded when Garamendi criticized the “distorted priorities” of the last 12 years of Republican state Administrations in building 23 prisons and major jails and only one state college campus.

Brown said the state should do a better job of enforcing the spirit of Proposition 98, which requires that about 40% of the state’s general fund budget be spent on education. She was applauded heartily by the teachers’ representatives when she proposed that money be raised for classrooms by cutting the cost of administration.

Wilson perhaps drew his most applause when he told the teachers: “You know better what to do in the classroom than the state Legislature in Sacramento.”

And he got the biggest laugh in his summation when he said he had been touched by his teachers as a youth, including the high school football coach who told him that it wasn’t weight that mattered on the field, but heart.

As a 150-pound guard, Wilson said that notion “damn near got me killed.”

At several points Brown and Garamendi sought to put Wilson on the spot over the question of whether illegal immigrants should be allowed in the schools. The Democrats challenged the governor to confirm that his program to control illegal immigration into California would--as Brown put it--”throw kids out on the street and not educate them.”

Garamendi put the question directly to Wilson, but CTA President Del Weber of Anaheim ruled it out of order.

Later, flourishing the page from a newspaper, Brown said: “I challenge you to get this on the record today. Do you support throwing kids out on the street?”

Wilson responded by saying that she had a copy of a newspaper ad he ran as an open letter to President Clinton on controlling illegal immigration and compensating California for the services it provides the illegal immigrants. One of his proposals was a constitutional amendment that would deny citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.