Davis’ Education Bills Head for Full Vote

Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa said Tuesday that the state eventually may need to raise taxes to pay for a first-class public education system.

Villaraigosa sees Gov. Gray Davis’ proposed education reforms as important first steps, but in his view they will need to be followed by a bigger investment in schools.

“Clearly, at some point the people are going to have to make a decision whether they are willing to spend more and obviously . . . heresy, I’ll say it, maybe even tax themselves to do it,” Villaraigosa said.

The Los Angeles Democrat said Davis’ reforms, with a $444-million price tag, will show voters the state can spend money wisely and build “public confidence” for even greater expenditures.

For Villaraigosa, there is a clear tie between education spending and results in the classroom.

“Anyone who tells you that there’s not is a snake oil salesman or a used car salesman, not a leader,” Villaraigosa said during a wide-ranging interview with The Times.

Villaraigosa cautioned that he was not issuing “a clarion call for more taxes for education.” But he contended that if California, now ranked 41st in annual per-pupil spending at $5,327, wants to advance to the national average of $6,335, state officials can’t be afraid to speak out.

“If you want the best schools in the country,” he said, “you’re going to have to pay for them.”

Besides taxes, in his view, a potential source of revenue for hard-pressed schools is the budget of the state’s 33 prisons. Over the past 15 years, the state has added 21 prisons and the Department of Corrections now spends more than $4 billion a year to lock up inmates.

“If you look at one part of the [state] budget that’s just gone up without any accountability, without any common sense how we spend those dollars, it’s the prison budget,” said Villaraigosa. He suggested that there are less costly alternatives to building more prisons, including programs to rehabilitate drug offenders and prevent crime.

For two decades, two of the most politically charged subjects in the Capitol have been tax increases and the mushrooming state prison system. The comments by Villaraigosa, a self-described progressive, may well trigger debate.

A spokeswoman for the governor said it was difficult to comment without knowing the details of the speaker’s suggestions. But Hilary McLean, a deputy press secretary to Davis, said the governor believes significant progress can be made in education through his reforms “without raising taxes.”

Davis has proposed a range of solutions to education problems--a high school exit exam, peer review of teachers, school performance rankings and reading assistance.

Jeff Thompson, a lobbyist for the prison guard union, said he does not see the speaker’s suggestions as a problem for his organization, which strongly backed Davis’ candidacy. “You’ve got to do both. Public safety and education are two critical government services,” he said.

Coming off a victory in last November’s election in which Democrats picked up five seats in the 80-member Assembly, Villaraigosa spoke with authority on a range of subjects, from his potential campaign for Los Angeles mayor to his plan to capture 50 Assembly seats in the fall 2000 elections. Democrats now hold a 47-32 margin in the Assembly with one vacancy, in the strongly Democratic 16th District in Oakland.

As he prepares to mark his first anniversary as speaker on Friday, Villaraigosa appeared at ease as he sketched out a broad liberal agenda.

He wants to push a plan to broaden health care for the working poor as well as press for a $1-billion coastal preservation and park bond, with provisions for more urban parks in places such as Los Angeles.

“It’s unacceptable that my kid has to go to South Pasadena to play ball,” he complained, because there aren’t enough fields in Los Angeles.

Although Villaraigosa said he has no plans to declare candidacy for mayor this year, he is raising quality-of-life issues that he clearly hopes will have a resonance with Los Angeles voters in two years.

“There’s no question I’m exploring it and there’s no question there’s broad support [for me] across the city,” Villaraigosa said. Still, he has no plans to relinquish the power of the speaker’s office.

Said Villaraigosa: “I intend to stay in this job as long as I’m serving the members.”