National Teachers Convention Opens in Anaheim Today : Education: Violence, teaching standards and charter schools are the hot-button issues for 4,000 AFT delegates. Vice President Gore will be among the speakers.

A host of prominent political figures, including Vice President Al Gore, will address the 73rd American Federation of Teachers convention, which begins today at the Anaheim Convention Center.

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The five-day convention will include speeches by Education Secretary Richard Riley, Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael Eisner and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Brown.

About 4,000 delegates representing the 852,000 members of America’s second-largest teachers union will take part in the national confab through Tuesday.

Up for discussion are a number of hot-button educational issues, including school violence, professional teaching standards and charter schools.

“We are going to see a lot of discussion around . . . educational reforms and setting standards,” said Mary Bergan, vice president of the AFT. “This is an opportunity for people to come together and to not just debate issues but to share what is happening in their states. We want to find the commonality.”

As part of the annual gathering, the union will debate and set future policy by voting on resolutions that will guide its lobbying activities at the local, state and federal level.

On Monday, the federation plans to release its study of nationwide efforts to move large numbers of disabled students into regular classes.

The study surveyed 400 teachers at schools that either have inclusion programs or are developing them. The survey asked teachers to assess the effectiveness of the programs and to comment on whether inclusion efforts should be expanded, said AFT spokeswoman Janet Bass.

Among the other issues to be addressed at the convention:

* The privatization of public schools. Privatization is being tried in several cities across the country, where entrepreneurs are assuming responsibility for operating the school systems or individual schools in an effort to run them more efficiently than do public school officials.

* Charter schools, a concept that gives teachers, parents and administrators at each school increased powers to set rules, curricula and academic standards. Santiago Middle School in Orange is slated to become the county’s first charter school.

* Improving education opportunities for students who don’t want to go to college to help them find quality jobs after high school graduation. Claude Duncan, the AFT’s public affairs director, said the issue is important because it affects “a majority of the kids in public education.”

“The country is still stuck in the 1950s on this issue,” he said. We haven’t gone beyond that.”

Delegates will also attend workshops on a variety of issues ranging from health care reform to human rights. Richard Trumka, president of the United Mine Workers, will give a talk Tuesday on labor law reform.

“The atmosphere will be hectic,” Duncan said. “There will be numerous meetings, workshops and speakers. It will take a balancing act for delegates.”