Kids’ Agenda Is Not New, Just Delayed

To hear Pete Wilson’s critics tell it, California’s governor is acting like the Grinch who changed his mind and gave Christmas back.

First, Wilson reduces class size to give students more individual attention from teachers. Then, he wants to lengthen the school year and start mandatory student testing. Now, he’s increasing funding for mentors, tutors and school construction.

What’s going on? How could a governor who was once his opponents’ favorite punching bag ostensibly for abandoning California’s children suddenly become the state’s leading advocate for educational excellence?

The answer is that Wilson hasn’t changed; improving life for California’s children has been a priority for him since he took office in 1991. His first “State of the State” address promised “a vision of government that is truly as uncomplicated as the old adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” His first budget laid out an agenda for what he called “preventive government,” education and children’s health care measures designed to address problems before they develop.

That’s when California was hit by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Taking over a state that was hemorrhaging jobs after the collapse of the defense and aerospace industries, Wilson found his first term in office dominated by the need to cut government spending to solve budget deficits that ran as high as $14 billion per year.

Every homeowner wants the right living room furniture, but more immediate concerns have to come first when the roof is on fire. So Wilson’s ambitious preventive agenda was delayed while he turned his full attention to the necessary business of keeping the state from going bankrupt. He fought to pass tax incentives and other job-creation measures to stem the flow of jobs to neighboring states. But he spent most of his first several years as governor performing fiscal triage, funding only those programs absolutely necessary to economic recovery.

Only two areas of government escaped his budget ax: public safety and public education. Wilson’s record on crime-related issues has become one of the most recognizable parts of his public and political persona. But largely due to incessant carping by a Democratic-controlled Legislature, his commitment to fully funding education throughout the recession was one of the state’s best-kept secrets. In fact, Wilson has increased the amount of money that California spent on elementary and high school education well beyond the amount mandated by law. He also implemented legislation for broader public school choice and charter schools as well as prenatal and perinatal care programs for expectant mothers.

But the image of Wilson that most Californians retain from those years is that of a relentless budget cutter. Ironically, the one issue that has reinforced that image more than any other is a topic on which he enjoyed the deepest level of public support, illegal immigration.

When Wilson threatened to cut off state-sponsored services to illegal immigrants, he was vilified as a xenophobe whose motivations were solely punitive. Lost in all the name-calling was the rationale for his action: that primary access to the state’s limited resources ought to be given to Californians who live here legally. Voters agreed with Wilson in overwhelming numbers, passing Proposition 187 with almost 60% of the vote. But the racially charged opposition to the initiative obscured the fact that the beneficiaries of the decision were to be the state’s legal residents and their children.

Largely as a result of his efforts to attract new jobs and reduce government spending, California has returned to economic health. At the same time, with resources available to him for the first time as a result of his budget cutting, Wilson is emphasizing his original agenda. In addition to education reforms, he has instituted new programs for children’s health care, child care for welfare recipients and other family support services.

Wilson’s detractors will continue to criticize him. But their back-seat budgeting won’t change the reality that California’s political leaders are moving ahead with a program for educational excellence. And that it was Wilson who made it possible.