GOP Offers Davis-Style School Reforms

Assembly Republicans on Tuesday proposed an education reform program that they said mirrors many of the changes Democratic Gov.-elect Gray Davis supported during his campaign.

Assembly GOP Leader Rod Pacheco said the package demonstrates a desire by Republicans to join Davis and the Democratic majority in reforming educational policies rather than retreating to the sidelines as critics.

“We looked for commonality [with Davis]. We looked for the positive end of it,” the Riverside lawmaker said of meshing GOP educational positions with those of the incoming governor.

Few if any of the GOP proposals were new. They touched on familiar issues such as improving teacher competence, holding schools more accountable for student progress, expanding statewide testing of pupils and increasing the safety of students on campus.

A striking omission was school vouchers, long a favorite issue of the GOP and outgoing Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. Davis opposes school vouchers, which would allow parents to use public funds to pay for their children’s private education.

Pacheco insisted that Republicans had not ruled out possible inclusion of vouchers in their reform agenda in the future, but said he never considered them a “magic solution” to the problems of schools.

Pacheco indicated that as Davis and the Democrat-dominated Legislature prepare for the upcoming legislative session, the GOP is hoping that early agreement on common education issues can avoid the nasty “partisan bickering” that has burdened past reform attempts.

Former state Sen. Gary K. Hart, the newly appointed education secretary to Davis and a Democrat, commended the Assembly GOP for targeting reform issues but stopped short of embracing specifics.

“They are dealing with important issues, issues that Gray has been talking about for over a year,” Hart said. “Most of them sound to me to be in the ballpark. . . . The devil is in the details.”

Hart described some of the Republican proposals as “outdated and warmed over,” such as statewide assessment testing.

Assemblywoman Kerry Mazzoni (D-San Rafael), chairwoman of the lower house’s Education Committee, agreed that the GOP plan appeared to be “largely things we have already done or done a lot of work on.”

But Mazzoni said the Republicans’ effort to find common ground with Davis “is a wise strategy.”

Noting that Democrats swept to major victories in last month’s elections, Mazzoni said that it would “serve no purpose for Republicans to draw a line in the sand. If Republicans are going to participate in shaping public policy, they need to come along with us.”

She said she was surprised that the GOP program made no mention of school vouchers. “It may be that they realize something like that is pretty much dead on arrival,” Mazzoni said.

Mazzoni said at least one Republican proposal probably would not survive. The Assembly Republicans want to require first-graders to be tested on reading ability at the start and end of the school year.

Children now are first tested for reading in second grade. Pacheco told reporters, “We cannot wait until the second or third grade to find out kids are not learning how to read.”