Wilson Steals Education Issue From Democrats

Education, the issue that Democrats once counted as their best weapon in this year’s campaign for control of the Legislature, was ripped off and turned against them this week by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Whether it was politics or priorities, the Democrats found themselves in the admittedly difficult situation of trying to argue that the governor wanted too much money to help ease overcrowding in the state’s elementary schools.

And the sometimes dour Wilson was gleeful. When Senate Democratic Leader Bill Lockyer began to voice complaints at a news conference, the governor whipped out a list of past quotes to demonstrate years of demands from Democrats who wanted him to do just what he was now proposing.

“Let me just share some of this with you,” Wilson happily offered. “This is from Delaine Eastin, superintendent of public instruction: ‘I have asked for reduced class size in kindergarten through third grade so that we can in fact give kids better foundation skills.’ ”

The governor then picked Assembly Democratic Leader Richard Katz from Sylmar out of the audience and mockingly praised his “great foresight” in recommending smaller classrooms in 1988. “Richard, I’m proud of you,” Wilson said.

Wilson has not had many opportunities to take these kind of political bows lately. In fact, aides privately agreed that this was the best public boost he has received since he orchestrated the landmark vote against affirmative action by the University of California Regents last summer.

Democrats, meanwhile, insisted that they were misunderstood. Of course, they wanted to help education. But for logistic reasons--like the rapid hiring of teachers and classroom construction required--they argued that schools could not spend all the money Wilson proposed in just one year.

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“Wilson used this effectively to show that he was for smaller class sizes and we weren’t--and that was a false impression,” said Sandy Harrison, Lockyer’s spokesman. “The nature of the issue just made his side easier to explain--’I am for lower class size.’ Well, so are we, but. . . .”

Today, however, there are a lot of double takes and puzzled looks in Sacramento caused by the fact that it was Wilson who put the Democrats on the defensive on education. If there was one issue where the governor appeared vulnerable, it was schools.

California fourth-graders ranked last for reading last year among the 39 states that participated in a national test. Classrooms are overcrowded, some are violent and many are ill-equipped. The state’s per-pupil spending--despite the voter-approved minimum requirement in Proposition 98--still ranks 40th in the nation.

Two years ago, Wilson’s staff acknowledged that the governor was vulnerable on the issue because he called for unpopular school cuts during the state’s recession. In fact, campaign strategists who worked on the governor’s 1994 reelection said they were astonished that Democrat Kathleen Brown did not press the issue harder.

Wilson knew it too when he launched his ill-fated campaign for president last year. When the issue of school funding came up, he argued that money was not the problem. Instead, he blamed the difficulties on a shoddy education code, irresponsible parents and selfish teacher unions.

Late last year, Democrats began an increasing drumbeat of education complaints about Wilson and the Republicans in hopes of building a campaign issue.

Wilson sought to head them off in January when he allocated a projected state budget surplus to education. His proposal included enough new money for California colleges and universities to avoid a tuition increase scheduled for this year.

“He had to face the fact that it was becoming an issue where the Democrats were getting a popular advantage,” state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) said at the time.

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In May, Wilson again took advantage of the state surplus to announce another windfall for schools. He recommended about $500 million to reduce classroom size in first and second grades; an additional $200 million for better reading programs, and finally, $50,000 to every school in the state for any purpose that officials saw fit.

It was another public relations coup for the governor, but it was not an especially brave decision. Proposition 98 required that all the money be spent on schools--the only question was how.

Last week, even more money became available for schools when Democrats killed Wilson’s plan for a sweeping income tax cut. That’s when the governor apparently whipsawed his opponents, suggesting immediately that some of the cash be spent to expand the classroom reduction plan to third grade.

Democrats seemed to lose their footing. They had expected the tax cut to fail and were already planning on spending the money elsewhere.

That’s when Wilson’s team smelled its political opportunity.

While the leaders bickered in public at a news conference Tuesday evening, a charter jet was waiting at Sacramento Metro Airport to take the governor at dawn on a quick lap through the state for boasting purposes.

In Fresno, Wilson’s backdrop was scheduled to be a gathering of first-, second- and third-grade classes from a local school. These children would have better instruction if it weren’t for the Democrats, he planned to say.

Between stops on his whirlwind tour, the governor scheduled at least 15 radio and television interviews throughout the state via mobile phone. As Wilson put it, he was taking his message to the people.

“Not only was there a freight train coming down the track, but the freight train was loaded up with past comments by some of the Democrats involved,” said one Republican advisor. “In effect, they were going to be run over by their own train.”

About six hours before takeoff, the trip was canceled. Staring down the barrel of a damaging Wilson public relations blitz, Democrats emerged from the governor’s office about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday to announce that they had agreed on a plan to reduce California classrooms.

As for the logistics complaints, Lockyer said at the early morning news conference: “We are going to hope that parents and teachers and school leaders will be creative in using the available money to effectuate these class-size reductions.”

The leaders actually agreed to increase the $678 million that Wilson had proposed for class-size reduction to $771 million. Democrats said that made the difference for them, explaining that the governor’s earlier proposal did not provide enough money for the changes he sought.

Who won? “I don’t think Sen. Lockyer would begrudge that Wilson made class size a priority,” Harrison said. “He would say the Democrats made it a priority first and Wilson’s doing it the way he did made it a technical problem for us in figuring out how to do it right.”