Tough Graders : L.A. Students Grill 3 of 5 Candidates for State Schools Chief

Terrie La Vann, a sixth-grader at 68th Street School in South-Central Los Angeles, had a question Sunday for the people vying to become California’s next superintendent of public instruction.

Striding purposefully to the microphone set up in an elementary school auditorium, the 12-year-old calmly faced the grown-ups sitting on the stage and got right to the point: “What can you do to increase our reading scores?”

His was the first of an hourlong barrage of questions from the ultimate education consumers--public school students--who got a last-minute crack at some of the candidates for superintendent in Tuesday’s state primary.

An afternoon forum arranged by the advocacy group Children Now brought well-prepared youngsters--and nary a softball question--to the Carthay Center School in the Wilshire district. From fourth-graders to high school seniors throughout the Los Angeles area, they wanted to know what the candidates proposed to make schools safer, cleaner, less crowded. They wanted to know how they could get more computers, enough textbooks and better preparation for jobs.

Zachary Markey, a sixth-grader at Pennekamp School in Manhattan Beach, wanted to know what the candidates would do about cutbacks at public libraries. Christine Jun, a senior at Los Angeles High School, demanded to know why students are sometimes passed along to the next grade when they haven’t mastered basic skills.

And Mark Birnbaum, a junior at Palisades High, extracted promises from each candidate to step down if he or she could not fulfill campaign promises.

Submitting to the grilling were three of the five major candidates for the technically nonpartisan office: Joseph Carrabino, a retired UCLA business management professor and Republican former member of the governor- appointed State Board of Education; Maureen DiMarco, a Democratic former local school board member now serving as Republican Gov. Pete Wilson’s education adviser; and Assemblywoman Delaine Eastin (D-Fremont), chair of the Assembly Education Committee and the choice of the powerful California Teachers Assn.

Gloria Matta Tuchman, a teacher and political independent whose campaign has centered on her longtime crusade to end bilingual education and instead teach the children of immigrant families in English, was out of the state. Wilbert Smith, a conservative Republican who was a leader in last fall’s ballot campaign to provide tax vouchers for private school tuition, canceled his earlier commitment to participate in the forum.

The students’ questioning highlighted some of the differences among the candidates who did show up.

Carrabino, for example, said he would improve school safety by expelling troublemakers. Schools do not need more money, he argued, but should spend what they have more wisely. There are too many “special-interest groups trying to maximize their piece of the pie,” he said.

DiMarco advocated greater decision-making authority for local schools and said she favors proposals to allow a community to raise taxes for education with a simple majority vote instead of the two-thirds required now. She also called for better community support for students and schools. “Students need continuous contact with adults who really care about them,” DiMarco said.

Eastin provided a few fireworks by repeatedly bringing up DiMarco’s link with an administration that she said has made prisons a higher spending priority than schools and has eroded education funding.

When DiMarco countered that per-child school spending has remained the same despite several years of recession-induced budget deficits, and that education funds have increased by $4.5 billion over four years, Eastin shot back.

“What do you see?” Eastin asked the student audience. In terms of cleanliness, textbooks and classroom crowding, “are your schools worse off than they were four years ago?”

Los Angeles High senior Nicole Quang said she found the exchanges “pretty interesting. . . . I’ve never been to anything like this before.”

But Tony Zapeda, a student leader at Jefferson High in South-Central Los Angeles, said he didn’t think the forum was worth his cross-town bus trip. “I felt like I was just talking to politicians” when he tried to voice his concerns about student motivation, he said.

Schoolmate Sally Zuniga, however, thought the forum was worth giving up a Sunday afternoon.

“I’m interested in politics,” said the 17-year-old junior, who hopes to attend the University of California after high school. Besides, she added with a candor not often found at political gatherings, “it’s extra credit.”