Wilson Vetoed School Oversight Panels in 1992

Gov. Pete Wilson was blasted as a flip-flopper Thursday by critics who said his proposal for a school oversight panel this week closely resembles a Democratic one he vetoed five years ago.

In 1992, Wilson, a Republican, rejected a Democratic plan allowing each school to create teacher-parent panels that would make decisions about curriculum and spending. His veto was partly based on his belief that it was inappropriate for the state to intrude on local authority.

The governor’s critics said Thursday that Wilson has now reversed himself by launching a ballot initiative this week that would, among other things, require schools to create parent-teacher panels that would make similar decisions.

“He seemed to be concerned about state mandates at that time, and now he wants to impose more of them,” said Sandy Harrison, spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward). “We find that to be a curious inconsistency.”

Wilson officials rejected the charge that the initiative represents a reversal, and they defended the governor’s decision to make the panels a requirement.

“The governor believes that without a mandate the districts will not allow school sites to participate,” said Glee Johnson, under-secretary in the governor’s office of child development and education. “You are asking the school districts to give up their ability to control what happens in their district, and that is very difficult for school districts to do.”

Johnson also said there are significant differences in the makeup of the panels proposed in the 1992 bill and in Wilson’s proposed ballot initiative. Specifically, the Democratic plan would have had a majority of teachers while the governor’s would be dominated by parents.

Wilson did not complain about the makeup of the proposed panel when he vetoed the Assembly bill on Sept. 27, 1992. Instead, he said the panels were unnecessary because schools already had the authority to create them if they chose. He also said a requirement from the state was inappropriate.

“This bill is unnecessary since schools can, and have, established their own site-based decision making programs under existing law,” Wilson wrote in his veto message. “This bill, by imposing prescriptive requirements on schools and school districts, would limit their existing flexibility.”

The author of the earlier bill was then-Assemblywoman Delaine Eastin--who is now the state superintendent of public instruction.

The bill called for “school-based management” panels to handle curriculum and spending decisions. The bill won bipartisan support and passed the state Assembly by a unanimous vote, said Ann Evans, Eastin’s former chief of staff.

Wilson officially unveiled his education initiative Thursday. The proposed measure was sent to the attorney general’s office for a legal review.

After that, Wilson will lead an effort to obtain about 433,000 signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot in November.

In addition to the parent-teacher panels, the initiative would guarantee continued funding for smaller classrooms in kindergarten through third grades, create a chief inspector of schools to report on the performance of individual campuses and the education system overall and require expulsion of students caught with illegal drugs on campus.

It is only the second ballot initiative that Wilson has sponsored by himself since he took office in 1991. He backed Proposition 165, a 1992 welfare reform measure that failed.