Wilson-Eastin Tiff: No Winners

Just as California embarks on multibillion-dollar education reforms, Delaine Eastin, the state superintendent of public instruction, is imposing deep budget cuts on her staff. This is an unfortunate outgrowth of a bitter political and legal fight that pits Eastin against Gov. Pete Wilson and members of the Wilson-appointed state Board of Education.

This battle, which threatens to disrupt the implementation of the sweeping education reforms adopted by the Legislature as well as the voter-ordered end to bilingual education, never should have happened. It is another regrettable result of an education management structure that inherently and historically produces conflict between superintendents on one hand and governors and their boards on the other.

The latest episode involved Eastin’s handling of a lawsuit filed against the San Francisco school district over its refusal to give a new statewide test in English to limited-English-speaking students. Eastin, a Democrat holding an officially nonpartisan office, ultimately sued San Francisco on the testing matter, but Wilson, a Republican, scolded her in a letter demanding “that you perform your responsibilities in a more effective and timely fashion.” Eastin also fought separately with the board over her legal right to represent the state in court on education matters.

Wilson retaliated in the 1998-99 state budget by slashing Eastin’s $35-million management budget by $8 million. He said the money would be restored if Eastin gave up most of her own legal staff. Eastin refused, and she has a point. The superintendent is an independently elected statewide official, and state law invests the office with all executive and administrative powers. But the law also makes the board the governing and policy-making body of the department. And a 1991 Supreme Court decision established the board’s primacy in a number of important matters.

The Legislature and the new governor should fix the immediate situation quickly when the legislators convene in January. Then the lawmakers should open serious discussion of reforming the education structure so that decades of fruitless feuding can be ended.