Gubernatorial Hopefuls Stress Education Goals

Suddenly it seems every politician is running for PTA president.

Even though the primary is more than seven months away, three of the four possible Democratic candidates for California governor have delivered major speeches outlining their education reform plans. Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, the all-but-certain GOP nominee, is expected to follow.

Lt. Gov. Gray Davis wants to conscript parents as homework helpers. Businessman Al Checchi wants to wire every high school for Internet access. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein wants to cut class sizes even more than Gov. Pete Wilson has managed these past two years. All want to mend--not end--bilingual education.

You don’t need an advanced degree to figure out why so many candidates are elbowing their way to the schoolhouse door. As Darry Sragow, a Checchi strategist, explained: “All the political professionals see the same results from focus groups and pollsters. You’re going to see each campaign have a different take on the same phenomenon--that is, education is the No. 1 issue.”

And it’s not only in California that politicians are crowding the education bandwagon.

Q. Whitfield Ayres, a Republican pollster who works extensively in the South, said improving education is the top priority of voters in the Carolinas, Alabama and Tennessee, as well as in his home state of Georgia. “It far surpasses any other issue,” Ayres said.

Earlier this month in Virginia, the GOP’s James S. Gilmore clobbered his Democratic opponent and swept to the governor’s mansion on a platform vowing to improve the public schools at the same time he eliminated Virginia’s hated local car tax.

His emphasis on better schools--and paying for them--reflected a broad reassessment of how Republicans should approach education, a move hastened by President Clinton’s artful use of the issue in 1996, particularly in appealing to women voters--who express the greatest concern about the issue--and independents.

“It is one of the reasons why there is a gender gap,” Ayres said, “because Democrats up to now have been trusted with the issue more than Republicans.”

Glen Bolger, a Washington-based GOP pollster, thinks he knows why. “We have been perceived as anti-education partly because of our message about doing away with the [federal] Department of Education, never explaining what that means or why,” Bolger said. “We’ve scared parents and given those who like things the way they are a reason to defend the status quo.”

He suggested that Republican candidates can do better by offering a more affirmative agenda, “talking about things like putting more dollars into the classroom, more discipline, more focus on basics, making schools safer and [exerting] local control rather than federal control.”

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The fact that Democrats--such as Feinstein and Checchi--are sounding many of the same themes suggests a common ground that may serve as a starting point for real reform efforts.

Just last week, under Wilson, the State Board of Education approved a new set of academic standards in reading and language arts for the third and eighth grades. Standards in math, science and other subjects are in the offing. New basic skills tests will be given for the first time next spring. And in January, the Democratic-run Legislature will begin working on a plan to reward schools that do well--and sanction those that do not.

But what Gilmore may discover in Virginia--and what California’s candidates might bear in mind--is that offering theoretical fixes from the campaign trail is easy. The difficult part is figuring out how to pay for them once in office.

Wilson has been blessed in the past two years with a rebounding economy that has generated billions of dollars in unanticipated revenues. By law, much of that money had to go to schools. Faced with clear academic shortcomings in the areas of reading, math and science, the governor rolled out a steady stream of policies aimed at reducing class size, reemphasizing the basics and raising academic standards.

But analysts agree that the dramatic growth in education revenues will not continue. Instead, the schools’ share of the state budget--now about $33 billion--is expected to rise only slightly faster than inflation.

That means it will take years to make up the more than $1,000-per-child gap between what is spent in California and what is spent nationally on average.

Thus, paying for the candidates’ ambitious ideas for helping public schools would almost certainly mean one of two things: higher taxes or cuts in spending on prisons, welfare, higher education and other areas.

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In a policy address delivered Tuesday, Checchi projected about $1 billion in savings from a shrunken bureaucracy to help pay for his platform--which is more detailed than any other candidate has offered to date. But rough estimates from the governor’s office suggest that just one of Checchi’s proposals--universal preschool--could cost about $3 billion annually if, as he has proposed, middle-class students were included in addition to the low-income pupils served now.

Checchi and Feinstein have both called for longer school days and sharp increases in teacher pay to attract more qualified instructors.

Those salary increases would be expensive. Wages account for 70% or more of the budgets of most school districts, and pay raises for starting teachers would probably result in higher pay for experienced teachers and nonteaching employees as well.

Lengthening the school year, as Feinstein wants to do, would cost $50 million a day, according to legislative estimates.

Feinstein, Checchi, Davis and state Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara)--another possible gubernatorial candidate--all want to end “social promotion,” meaning that students who do not score high enough on tests would be held back. But educators question whether the candidates, if elected, would provide the expensive teacher training, textbooks and intensive tutoring needed to make sure students succeed in the first place.

On the whole, though, educators welcome the attention from candidates.

Ken Hall, an influential education consultant in Sacramento, said advocates will make it a point to remember the campaign promises made--recalling how then-Gov. George Deukmejian was coaxed into signing a 1983 reform bill by being reminded of his pledge to be an “education governor.”

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Others, however, worry that education policy made in the heat of a campaign will amount to an ill-considered laundry list of appealing ideas, rather than a strategic, long-term plan.

“It would be nice if the candidates said, ‘Let’s take three months and focus in on what we’ve learned in the past 20 years of education reform and see what’s effective,’ ” said Bruce Fuller, an associate professor of public policy at UC Berkeley.

Similarly, Davis Campbell, executive director of the California School Boards Assn., said he is heartened by the candidates’ focus on education. But at the same time, he is skeptical.

On the subject of social promotion, Campbell agrees that moving students along even if they are failing--as the schools do now--is a serious problem. “The question is, what are they going to do about it and are they prepared to deal with the implications of solving that problem? I’m not sure that any of them are.”

Feinstein and Checchi favor giving struggling students a chance to catch up by paying for them to attend summer school. It is unclear how much such a program might cost, given the lack of detail from the candidates. But it is certain to be expensive.

Last summer, the Long Beach Unified School District was among the first in the country to require lagging third-graders to hit the books for five weeks during vacation.

One in five students in that grade attended the summer sessions, which cost the district about $300 each. A similar program statewide would have cost $27 million for third-graders alone.

Moreover, the candidates have not spelled out how they would address what is easily the costliest problem facing California schools: how to finance the construction of classrooms for the 850,000 to 1 million new students expected in the next decade.

Already, many schools--especially in cities such as Los Angeles and in fast-growing suburbs--are jammed to capacity. Wilson’s program reducing the number of pupils in kindergarten through third grade to no more than 20 per classroom added to the problem. In many districts, libraries, teacher lounges, computer rooms and parent centers had to be converted to classrooms.

In the next two years, the state Department of Education estimates that schools need to find 44,000 more classrooms.

In addition, more than 60% of the state’s schools are more than 30 years old and due for extensive repairs and modernization. The price tag? Estimates range between $20 billion and $42 billion.

All four of the Democratic prospects favor making it easier for communities to pass bond issues to pay for repairs and new buildings. Lungren has taken no position on that issue. Most analysts agree, however, that it will take more than local bonds to raise the money needed.

If the next governor can figure out how to build the schools that will serve California’s next generation, he or she could lay claim to a lasting legacy to match the vaunted water, highway and state university systems built in the 1960s under Gov. Edmund G. Brown Sr.

But first, someone has to get elected. Then the hard part begins.

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Focus on Education

Public opinion polls consistently show that education is uppermost on the minds of California voters. Even before the campaign heats up, the candidates --and prospective candidates--for governor have outlined their ideas for improvements.

Democrats

Businessman Al Checchi:

* Boost starting salaries for teachers 20%, on condition they are tested every five years.

* Increase spending on textbooks and wire every high school to give students Internet access.

* Test students every year after third grade.

* End bilingual education after two years, with intensive English instruction in pre-school and kindergarten.

* Universal pre-school.

* More “charter schools,” which operate free of central office bureacracies.

* Opposes the so-called Unz initiative, which would dismantle the state’s system of bilingual education.

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Lt. Gov. Gray Davis:

* Require parents to sign annual vows to help their children with homework and attend regular school meetings.

* Test students annually.

* Establish “peer review”--in which teachers evaluate their colleagues’ performance--and “merit pay” so that superior teachers earn more.

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U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein:

* Establish achievement standards in core subjects, with testing in 4th, 6th and 10th grade.

* Lengthen the school day and year.

* Expand cuts in class size.

* Decrease school size.

* Limit administrative expenses.

* More “charter schools.”

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State Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-San Jose):

* Enhance parental involvement in learning through parenting education in schools and health-care settings.

* Boost state funding to further reduce class size.

* Reform teacher education so that educators “are more inspiring.”

* Stress individualized, rather than universal, assessments of student performance.

* Opposes the Unz initiative.

Republicans

Attorney General Dan Lungren

* Full platform yet to come. So far, he has said he favors:

* Relying more heavily on community colleges.

* Giving local school districts more independence.

* Providing public funds for vouchers enabling parents to send their children to private schools.

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All favor:

Restoring communities’ power to approve school construction and repair bonds with a simple majority vote.

Ending “social promotion” of students who do not meet minimum standards.