Testing of Davis to Begin in Special Session on Schools

Gov. Gray Davis’ high-powered drive to restore unchallenged excellence in California’s schools starts Tuesday in the Legislature as he tries to enact bills that would do everything from rewarding schools that perform better to establishing peer review for teachers.

Lawmakers will convene in a special session devoted to overhauling public education with the ambitious goal of enacting reforms that can be implemented in time for the next fall term.

But whether this will actually occur will depend on several circumstances: The Legislature getting organized swiftly; the army of special interests--including the often prickly teachers unions--compromising; and Davis himself agreeing that the final result meets the high expectations he has set.

Among other things, the new Democratic governor wants teachers and principals better trained, children to read sooner, high school graduates to pass exit exams, and schools to be rewarded or punished based on performance.

Whether he gets all or part of his agenda for the special session is its own challenge, one that has produced mixed results for his predecessors who have tried it.

Beyond the fanfare, the only real difference between the bustle expected to begin Tuesday and the current, un-special legislative session is that special-session laws can take effect sooner.

“If I have a fight on my hands, so be it, but you are looking at the most determined man in Sacramento,” Davis told reporters Thursday. “I became governor because I didn’t lose focus, and I’m not going to lose focus on this either.”

Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) voiced confidence that the education session will produce “substantial” reforms, but “it will mean that everybody will have to stretch a bit” to reach a consensus.

Though details are expected to remain in flux as late as Tuesday morning, sources said Davis’ plan calls for the introduction of four omnibus bills based on his general areas of concern: school accountability, reading preparation, teacher peer review and professional development.

The measures are expected to contain proposals Davis has made during his two weeks in office: a high school exit exam beginning in 2003, for example, and reading academies for struggling elementary school students.

They also will include up to a $150-per-student bonus for schools that meet improvement goals, and training institutes on University of California campuses for principals and 6,000 neophyte reading teachers.

“There’s never been any training for principals,” Davis said. “You just sort of wander into the job.”

The Clock Is Ticking

The administration’s goal is to finish the special session by April, so the laws can take effect July 1--before the start of the fall school term.

Asked whether the Legislature will be able to digest such sweeping proposals so quickly, Davis’ education secretary, Gary Hart, said: “I think we have a shot.”

In the best scenario, the special session will be a clarion call for disparate interests to come to the table and hash out their differences--”like ‘Olly, olly oxen free,’ ” suggested one administration source.

In the worst case, the session will be an empty gesture, as it was in October 1992, when Gov. Pete Wilson called one a month before the fall elections to reform workers’ compensation insurance. No new laws resulted. Many observers and participants are predicting something in between.

Former state Senate President Pro Tem James R. Mills, a San Diego Democrat, and retired Assemblyman William T. Bagley, a Republican from San Rafael, veterans of many special sessions, agreed that while there is no guarantee Davis will accomplish his goals, a session devoted to education can be an invaluable public relations tool for a governor.

“I don’t believe that calling a special session makes it any easier to pass a measure. The same factors that work in a general session are at work in a special session,” Mills said.

Bagley said focusing on education can restore “some credibility” in government. “It shows the governor is on top of things and doing things. . . . The public is saying, ‘Let’s reform education.’ ”

Summoning lawmakers into special session is a device Wilson increasingly used. During his tenure, 15 issues were considered in special sessions, compared with just five under his predecessor, George Deukmejian.

A special session is intended to enable a governor and the Legislature to respond faster to an extraordinary development--typically, disasters such as floods, fires, droughts and earthquakes. They can last just a few months, although some have dragged on concurrently with regular sessions for nearly two years.

There was one in 1992 after the Los Angeles riots, and one in 1997 to deal with winter floods. Welfare reform, crime and community college funding also have been deemed worthy of special sessions.

Laws enacted during special sessions take effect 90 days after the session ends, instead of the following Jan. 1, the norm. “Urgency” bills can take effect immediately upon a governor’s signature, but require a two-thirds vote of each house to pass.

In addition to the benefits, special sessions can pose political risks.

Mills recalled that in 1960, then-Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Sr. called a special session to abolish the death penalty. He simultaneously stayed the execution of a notorious rapist and kidnapper, Caryl Chessman, pending the outcome of the session.

Brown’s bill was approved by the Assembly but not the Senate. Chessman was executed, handing Brown an embarrassing political reversal from which some historians believe he never fully recovered.

On the education front, there are risks aplenty.

A Yardstick for Progress

There is already a controversial new statewide student achievement test, first given in 1998, that will “come like a hammer every year,” said Assembly Minority Leader Rod Pacheco (R-Riverside), and it has the potential to raise the public’s hackles about continued performance shortfalls even before Davis’ proposed reforms have time to take effect.

“He’s in a trap,” Pacheco said.

And Republicans, in general, want teachers judged by tests that gauge their students’ achievement. Davis’ proposal favors the Democrats’ notion that student tests should be one measure of performance, along with graduation rates, attendance and other factors.

Democrats are likely to feel the tug from teachers unions, which will push for teacher peer review to be voluntary, not mandatory as Davis has suggested. “I don’t expect it to be a mandate, for the simple reason that there’s not enough money there to make it a mandate,” said Mary Bergan, president of the California Federation of Teachers.

Democrats also will hear from school administrators, who want to ensure that district performance standards reflect the reality that some districts start out lower.

Davis Campbell, executive director of the California School Boards Assn., said his organization advocates a rolling standard, first set lower to offer troubled districts hope, then raised.

Demands by the new governor for vast and rapid improvements in the schools come on top of major changes that Wilson, the Legislature and voters have ordered during the past three years.

They are just beginning to feel, for example, the full impact of class-size reduction, new statewide education standards and the anti-bilingual Proposition 227 passed by voters last year. To ask them to do more is quite a stretch, some school officials say.

Campbell is hopeful that the session will focus on knitting together the earlier reforms and the new ones. Davis’ proposals for teacher training, he said, will be a good way to start, since cutting class sizes has put an unprecedented number of new and untrained teachers into classrooms.

“It’s like a tsunami,” he said. “Just wave after wave after wave.”