Honig Is Out of Office but Still in School : Education: Former superintendent of public instruction teaches at a university and tutors fifth-graders. Meanwhile, he appeals his conviction on conflict-of-interest charges.

Fifth-graders compete for the attention of the balding, bespectacled tutor in the open-collar, blue-and-green plaid shirt.

“I don’t know how to do this,” complains one about a math problem. “I need help, too,” pleads another. A third lightly tugs on the tutor’s clothes.

Amid the hubbub of a crowded classroom in the heart of the city, the tutor, former state schools chief Bill Honig, bends his 6-foot, 4-inch frame over a desk to help one of the puzzled youngsters figure out the mystery of decimals.

“You’re on the right track,” he says. And, finally, with familiar Honig gusto, he forcefully exclaims: “You’ve got it!”

Forced to resign his office after his conviction last year on conflict-of-interest charges, Honig found a sanctuary from his legal troubles among the racially and ethnically diverse student body at the Dr. William Cobb Elementary School.

“See, these kids are just as eager to learn as anybody,” Honig says, waving his hands at the wide-eyed students whose school is just a short walk down the hill from his home on the edge of fashionable Pacific Heights.

His experience at Cobb, Honig says, provides him “a sense of reality. You start to forget after awhile, so it’s good to come back” into the classroom.

In the year since his conviction, the former superintendent of public instruction has plunged back into the mainstream of the education reform movement, mixing his real-world experiences with academic theories.

Besides his weekly court-mandated community service at Cobb, Honig is teaching at San Francisco State University, consulting and writing papers. His enthusiasm for school improvement is undimmed.

But he continues to devote considerable energy to clearing his name, seeking vindication through a court appeal. To help defray his legal bills, estimated at nearly $400,000, Honig raised about $91,000 last year, according to state records.

He left office after a Sacramento jury found him guilty of authorizing $337,509 in state contracts for local educators to set up parent involvement programs with the Quality Education Project, a nonprofit organization run by his wife, Nancy.

Honig, 56, said his wife remains on the QEP board of directors but is not involved in day-to-day operations. He said she has established another group that has encouraged parent involvement in Mexican schools.

He was not sentenced to jail but was ordered to do 1,000 hours of community service, pay a $10,800 fine, serve four years probation and pay restitution of nearly $275,000.

The sentence was suspended pending the outcome of his appeal. An unrepentant Honig maintains that he committed no crime, though he acknowledged that his actions might have been “dumb” or “stupid.”

Honig is especially bitter about the restitution provision, saying he likely would be forced to sell his house or his share in a winery partnership in order to raise the money.

Honig repeated his contention that Republican Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren pursued the case as a favor to Honig’s conservative critics.

Declining to discuss the specifics of the case, Lungren responded: “I have faith in the system. I’m sorry he doesn’t.”

Honig still has his share of admirers.

At a recent San Francisco education summit sponsored by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, Honig was greeted warmly by longtime friends and well-wishers, including a 24-year-old Mountain View teacher who shook his hand and said the former schools chief inspired him to become a teacher.

A week later, across town at Cobb Elementary, Honig was met with equal excitement by students who begged him to assist them with their math.

“I happen to love fifth-graders because they are just so open,” Honig said. “You can stimulate them so easily.”

Even though his sentence was suspended pending his appeal, Honig said he decided to bank the hours and continue going to teacher Stephen Riave’s 33-pupil class.

“They love him,” Riave said. “He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty.”

Honig said that in Riave’s classroom he is reminded of the reforms he sought as superintendent. Honig noted that he pushed for more reading of books, not just textbooks. “Even though they are strapped for funds, you’ll find more children’s literature in the classroom,” he said.

But he also acknowledged disappointments, citing the inability of many children to read at their grade level.

Honig’s rise to prominence began in 1975 when then-Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. appointed him to the State Board of Education.

The son of a wealthy advertising man, Honig practiced corporate law before quitting to take up teaching at an inner-city school and later earned a master’s degree in education. He became superintendent of a small but wealthy Marin County school district before he was named to the state board.

Honig still displays the same single-minded passion, outspokenness and inexhaustible energy that marked his tumultuous decade as superintendent of public instruction. In Sacramento, he gained a reputation for arrogance, but in the classroom Honig easily bantered with the schoolchildren about everything from homework to a classic Disney cartoon.

Even stripped of the bully pulpit of the $102,000-a-year superintendent’s post, Honig has sought ways to make schools more accountable.

He was appointed to a $60,000-a-year visiting professorship at San Francisco State University and helped launch an education reform center there.

Honig, who is eligible for a $40,800-a-year state pension when he turns 60, also is consulting on education issues. He is negotiating a trip to South Africa as part of a World Bank team to review how that nation can consolidate its school system as it dismantles apartheid.

“When he interacts with a group, he makes them think in new ways,” said Henrietta Schwartz, dean of the School of Education at San Francisco State. “And Bill is the eternal optimist. He sees opportunities where others may see problems.”

Honig stopped short of acknowledging that there was a silver lining to losing his superintendent’s job. But he admitted that there was a “benefit to me as an educator. . . . I got a chance to read a lot, visit a lot . . . it’s like a self-education.”

Regarding his continuing pursuit of education reform, he vowed: “If they (the courts) won’t let me do it one way, I’ll just do it another way.”