State Teachers Union Endorses Brown for Governor : Education: Action comes as national convention gets underway in Anaheim, with Al Gore to speak today.

The 40,000-member California Federation of Teachers endorsed gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Brown here Saturday as the parent American Federation of Teachers’ 73rd convention got underway, with leaders introducing the issues that will occupy the union’s delegates through Tuesday.

“We know that Kathleen Brown cares deeply about kids--big kids and little kids--at all levels,” said California Federation of Teachers President Mary Bergan, a vice president of the national organization. “We are very proud to endorse her.”

The state organization, which had endorsed state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi in the gubernatorial primary in June, has had some differences with Brown in the past, in part regarding her support for charter schools. But Brown vowed Saturday to focus on a common goal: improving the state’s public school system.

“I’m here to focus on the areas where we can work together,” she said at a news conference held before the union’s national president, Albert Shanker, and U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley welcomed 4,000 delegates to the Anaheim Convention Center.

Brown promised to implement a job training program for high school students, pump $100 million in technology into the schools and work to achieve campus safety. She also took a jab at Gov. Pete Wilson, echoing her campaign television commercial, which accuses him of reducing funds for education.

“Pete Wilson has had his chance, and he gets a failing grade,” Brown said.

Outside the convention center, more than 50 members of the African United Front of Los Angeles and the Coalition Against Black Exploitation protested the convention, criticizing the AFT for refusing to consider the merits of an Afrocentric curriculum.

The AFT has been unwilling to engage in scholarly debate about moving away from a Eurocentric focus on history in public education and highlighting African contributions to history and world civilization, community activist Nzinga Heru said.

She said the protesters are asking for an opportunity to present their views and have them published in American Teacher, the AFT publication. They also want the AFT to assemble a committee of Afrocentrists to provide the union with a book list, and they ask that the union hold local seminars on the issue.

The AFT issued a statement Saturday in response to the protest, saying that it “respects the heritage and value of every child” but does not endorse “Afrocentrism or any other educational approach based on ideology.”

Delegates from the 852,000-member American Federation of Teachers, whose convention opened Friday, began formal sessions Saturday.

The convention, which runs through Tuesday, features an address today by Vice President Al Gore. In addition to Brown and Riley, state Rep. Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove), a candidate for attorney general, welcomed delegates Saturday, along with state Rep. Delaine Eastin (D-Fremont), who is running for superintendent of public instruction.

Brown, Umberg and Eastin all issued impassioned pleas for the defeat of the “Save Our State” initiative on the November ballot, which would deny health and educational benefits to illegal immigrants and their children, whether or not they were born in the United States.

“It is not a ‘Save Our State’ initiative. It is a ‘Separate the People of Our State’ initiative,” Brown said.

The initiative would force teachers to police their students rather than teach them, she said. Umberg said the measure would pose a public safety hazard by placing thousands of schoolchildren out on the streets with nothing to do.