Teachers Union Poll Unfavorable to Governor

In an action certain to escalate tensions with the governor, the state’s major teachers union has circulated a poll that union officials say shows a sharp drop in Gray Davis’ standing with voters.

The poll also asserts that Californians think Davis’ newest education initiatives are inadequate and believe the state should spend far more money on schools.

Teachers union officials and their pollster, Mark Mellman, declined to release the actual wording of the questions asked in the poll but defended it as accurate.

A private memo circulated by California Teachers Assn. officials to Democratic and Republican leaders described the poll as showing Davis’ performance ratings falling “precipitously” in the last couple of months. That would be a sharp contrast with the findings of two recent statewide voter samplings in which about two of three Californians gave Davis high marks.

Representatives of Davis on Friday ripped the teachers association poll as “out of whack” and “misleading.”

Davis and the CTA are on-again, off-again political allies. But now they are at odds over a demand by the union that California boost its spending per pupil to the national average. The governor argues that cannot be accomplished without a tax increase costing about $5 billion. California is among the lowest states in per-student spending, the CTA asserts.

The union is considering an initiative for the November ballot that would require California’s spending for students to at least reach the national average.

In the Legislature, some sources suggested that the CTA poll might encourage lawmakers to side with the union in some of its quarrels with Davis in the belief that voters favor bigger education expenditures.

Michael Bustamante, the governor’s spokesman, refused to discuss whether Davis believed the poll was part of the union’s political agenda, but Davis’ top political advisor, Garry South, said it seemed political to him.

“It doesn’t square with anything else that I know of. This is a poll with a point of view,” South said.

Mellman denied that. “Clearly, the CTA has a point of view, but the [poll] questions do not reflect a point of view,” he said. His firm, the Mellman Group, based in Washington, D.C., counts many prominent Democrats as clients.

Bob Cherry, associate executive director of the CTA, said the poll results, which the CTA also shared with Davis’ aides, were a routine part of private research the organization conducts each year and makes available to legislative leaders and the governor.

“It wasn’t meant to be released to the press. We do this because we think data is important. Our intent was to get a sense for ourselves of what was going on in the minds of the voters of the state, and we shared that with the Legislature,” he said.

The union’s description of the poll included a finding that 62% of Californians believe the state is not spending enough on education and that even more, 68%, believe it should be spending more. Furthermore, the memo said voters favored, 62% to 29%, a boost in education spending rather than holding school spending at the current level.

The poll interviewed 800 likely general-election voters between March 19 and March 24.

It also found that Davis’ job performance ratings had slid from a 52% positive rating in January to 42% in March, which the memo described as a “precipitous” fall. His negative rating rose from 37% to 43% during the same period, the memo said.

On the issue of his overall favorability rating, Davis fell from 61% to 55%, the memo said, while his unfavorable marks rose from 22% to 28%.

On his performance relating specifically to education, the document said he had slid from 47% to 41% approval.

Other polls, taken a few weeks earlier, reported notably different results in the first-term governor’s ratings. A Los Angeles Times poll of likely voters found 68% approving of Davis’ job performance and 24% disapproving. In a Field Poll, 62% of registered voters approved and 20% disapproved.

“This is entirely out of whack with every poll that has been taken with regard to the governor’s job approval and the strong education proposals he has gotten through the Legislature and will get through the Legislature,” Bustamante said. “The way they have couched these figures is misleading.”