CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS : 12-Way Contest for Key Post May Come Down to Last-Minute Pitches

With three-fourths of the voters undecided about who should lead California’s much-debated system of public education, the June 7 primary race for schools chief is about to come down to a costly battle waged via mailbox and airwaves.

With even the major contenders in the 12-way contest conserving their limited resources until the final stretch, the campaign for superintendent of public instruction is only now beginning in earnest.

“None of the candidates has been able to raise a lot of money, and though they represent a huge range of expertise, ideology and ability to move the schools forward, they have not been able to get the word out,” said Sherry Loofbourrow, president of the California School Boards Assn., which recently hosted a Sacramento candidates forum attended by most of the contenders.

“When you think about all that is at stake here, when you think about the impact that (the three previous state superintendents) each had on a whole decade of education in California, it’s a major concern if people don’t pay attention to this race,” Loofbourrow added.

Despite strong evidence that voters want improvements in the schools and despite the fact that there has not been such a wide-open race for the post in more than three decades, the contest’s visibility is strikingly low.

A Los Angeles Times poll conducted statewide recently found that 75% of registered voters--and 70% of those likely to go to the polls--had not made up their minds. None of the five major candidates were favored by any more than 9% of the likely voters.

Unless a single candidate wins a majority on Election Day--which seems all but impossible--this officially nonpartisan race will not be decided until November, when the top two vote-getters meet in a runoff.

“Anybody who gets a message out to the public can win” a runoff spot, said a campaign consultant for one of the major candidates. He was referring to the last-minute flurry of fund-raising appeals for television or radio commercials and the scramble to get on paid “slate cards” that have begun arriving in voters’ mailboxes.

Two Democrats are the candidates best known and widely supported among the state’s education Establishment, including many business leaders who have worked to improve schools. They are Maureen DiMarco, who is Republican Gov. Pete Wilson’s education adviser, and Assemblywoman Delaine Eastin of Fremont, head of the Assembly Education Committee and the choice of the politically influential California Teachers Assn.

Three conservatives are mounting substantial campaigns. One is Wilbert Smith, a Republican who campaigned hard for last November’s unsuccessful initiative to provide state tax vouchers for private school tuitions. Another Republican is Joseph D. Carrabino, a retired business management professor from UCLA and a former member of the governor-appointed State Board of Education. Teacher and local school board member Gloria Matta Tuchman is an independent who has been running for two years on a platform to end the state’s bilingual education policies.

DiMarco, a former school board member from Garden Grove and onetime president of the statewide school boards organization, calls for a coordinated, comprehensive approach to school reform instead of the “piecemeal” efforts to date.

Eastin, author of several education reform bills, wants to see more technology in instruction and calls for more partnerships with the business community to help fund school improvements.

Carrabino, who criticizes DiMarco and Eastin as too much a part of the education Establishment, wants to cut school administrative costs and reduce the state Education Department budget in order to send more money to the classrooms without raising taxes.

Smith, a former bank executive with a degree in education, has offered a plan to reduce campus violence and proposed eliminating “categorical” programs, such as special education and bilingual education, to raise the amount of money available to spend on all students.

Eastin and Smith have raised the most money, according to campaign finance reports filed last week. By May 21, the end of the latest reporting period, Eastin had raised $662,000 and spent $507,000.

Eastin is getting two additional visibility boosts beyond what her campaign coffers afford her. She is included on an endorsements list that the CTA, the state’s biggest teachers union, sends to its 230,000 members. She is also named in a controversial slate card sent out by the state Democratic Party.

Because superintendent is a nonpartisan office and state law bars parties from endorsing in such races, the state Republican Party last week won a court order to halt the mailing. However, three-fourths of the 1 million cards had been mailed by the time the judge acted.

Smith reported raising $372,000 and spending $289,000. His biggest contribution, $131,000, came from Arkansas businessman John Walton of the Wal-Mart discount chain.

Smith will be on several paid slate mailers that will be sent to Republicans and at least two that are going to Democrats, including one aimed at black voters. Smith is the only African American in the contest. His campaign plans to begin airing radio commercials Tuesday.

Carrabino had raised $80,600, including $60,000 in loans, and spent $11,740. He said he expects to send out at least one targeted mailing and to be on one slate card.

DiMarco had received $67,500 and spent $75,000. She expects to be on at least two slates and to have raised enough money to buy television commercials in several areas around the state.

Matta Tuchman reported raising $71,000, including $24,000 in loans, and spending $69,000.

Things were certainly different in 1982, when a then-unknown Bill Honig forced three-term incumbent Wilson C. Riles into a runoff and then took the post in November. Honig did it by raising enough money--$1.2 million in the primary--to blast his reform message through television sets up and down the state.

This year, the state’s economy is sour, and the campaigns for governor and Senate are siphoning off most of the available contributions. Nor is there an incumbent for challengers to campaign against because Honig had to resign last year when he was convicted on felony conflict-of-interest charges.