2 Candidates Grapple With Education Issues

The Democratic pol is stumping for votes among the black political establishment in the San Gabriel Valley. Over lunch at the Sheraton hotel in Pomona, she rails against racism, profiteering oil companies and the growing wealth gap, all reliable Democratic issues.

But when it comes to schools, Sen. Dianne Feinstein doesn’t sound much like a proud defender of the education establishment and its powerful unions.

If they want to see “how a big, troubled school district is turning itself around,” she tells the Black American Political Assn., they ought to visit Chicago. That’s where Mayor Richard Daley took over the schools and brought in an ironfisted manager who closed schools, extended the school day and ended social promotion.

“We have to learn from that example,” she says.

Now hear Feinstein’s Republican opponent, Rep. Tom Campbell, chatting with advisors in Palo Alto. He trots out a few conservative hobbyhorses: School vouchers should be tried, and the cost of mainstreaming special ed children is draining dollars from programs serving other children. “The federal government has never paid for” the program, he complains.

But he doesn’t sound like a fire-breathing Republican when he insists that he would support public vouchers for private schools only if they don’t take money from the public schools. And he openly worries that if the Feds left it to the states to deal with their disabled students, they would just warehouse them the way they did in the bad old days.

The Senate candidates’ willingness to stray outside the conventional wisdom of their parties partly reflects their personalities. Campbell has taken a number of controversial positions, including his support of a program to give heroin to users. Feinstein also has shown a streak of independence, most notably when she left the Democratic fold to criticize President Clinton’s behavior. But both also recognize that in 2000, education is not just another issue.

As a national consensus seems to be forming behind the idea that if education doesn’t rebound, all other issues will be irrelevant, both candidates have abandoned the old broadsides.

The magnitude of the problem facing the state is underscored by the size of the system. California educates 5.8 million students, more than the population of any one of 36 states. As many as 11% of the state’s 285,000 teachers are teaching with emergency credentials.

Their students include 40% of the nation’s immigrants; some schools cope with a student body that speaks multiple languages. And this overmatched system is facing a demographic bulge created by children of the baby boomers.

Both candidates are having trouble raising money in a campaign that has so far generated little excitement among voters. Feinstein has raised about $3 million, Campbell about $1.3 million. Donors are hanging back because Campbell has yet to prove he can make a strong run at the incumbent. Independent polls have shown him trailing by up to 26 points.

Because education is primarily a state and local matter, Feinstein said, she sees her role as using the “bully pulpit” of the state’s highest-ranking federal office to push local decision makers toward effective reform.

The crisis in education hit home for her when a group of high-tech executives came to Washington a few years back pleading for immigration exemptions to hire foreign engineers, she said.

“Why don’t you hire Americans?” Feinstein asked. “They can’t read well enough,” was the reply.

Today, 3,000 entry-level engineering jobs go begging. The tech world is so desperate, she said, that a friend’s son got a Ferrari as a bonus when he hired on.

“I believe California’s greatest challenge is to fundamentally reform our public schools so that these good-paying jobs go to California citizens and residents,” she said in Pomona.

As a law professor at Stanford University, Campbell has seen close up the part of American education that is the envy of the world: a dynamic, competitive system of public and private universities. Finding ways to replicate that success in the lower grades is a key part of his campaign.

One of the hottest issues is the fight over Proposition 38, which would give $4,000 per year in state money to parents for every child they choose to send to private school. Feinstein opposes the measure because, she says, it carries the danger of mixing church and state by funding religious schools.

But she also said educators cannot afford to drag their heels on reform. “The harder it is to get real reform, the more impetus there is for vouchers,” she said.

Campbell said he neither supports nor opposes the voucher initiative. He is sympathetic to the concept, but is concerned that it goes too far in making everyone eligible for vouchers. He favors an experimental program for students in the worst-performing schools.

“Provided that the receiving school doesn’t invidiously discriminate, why shouldn’t we see if this approach improves children’s performance?” he asked.

He said his plan would not take money from the public schools, but would be funded from the state’s surplus.

Those who aim to stave off measures such as vouchers are pinning their hopes on the “smaller is better” movement, and both Feinstein and Campbell favor this approach.

Both join reformers who would like to extend current class-size reduction efforts. Current policy is to reduce class sizes in kindergarten through third grade, and state officials are talking about extending that into middle school.

To Campbell, reducing class sizes is a top priority. The strong California economy allows the state to spend more on schools, Campbell said. “Lowering class size is where that money should go first.”

He also urged that more attention be paid to replacing aging facilities.

Feinstein said the ideal size for an elementary school is 450 to 500 students, and for a high school, 1,200 students. The need for smaller schools is particularly important “where you have a very diverse population and many different languages,” she said.

The state needs 300 new schools, Feinstein said, just to stay even with population growth.

The challenge is finding the money to build all those schools and finding and paying all the teachers needed to staff them. One solution being debated is to change the formula for passing school construction bonds.

Now, a two-thirds majority is needed, a standard so rigorous that many bond measures fail. Typically, older voters with grown children have less stake in the public schools and less interest in voting to build new ones. The aging electorate is likely to make it even more difficult to secure the two-thirds majority in the future.

Feinstein and Campbell favor reducing the current two-thirds requirement to 55%, as Proposition 39 on the November ballot would do. If that initiative had been in force in recent elections, educators say, as many as 80% of bond issues would have passed.

Campbell said he can justify the change on the basis that this type of levy confers both the benefits and the costs on the same group of people: the young. Their children will get new schools, and they will pay the tab over the multiyear life of the bonds.

The other part of the equation is teacher compensation, because it doesn’t matter how many computers you have or how well the air conditioning works if the teacher is little more than a baby sitter.

Campbell said we as a society “have removed practically every incentive for excellence from the profession of public teaching.” In San Jose, his home district, half of all first-year teachers quit, some because they can’t afford the area’s high cost of living and others because they don’t believe they get enough support in the classroom.

Both candidates agree that teaching must be made a rewarding enough career that the best educators stay in the classroom, rather than see it as a stopping-off point on the way to a less demanding, more lucrative career.

Campbell supports merit pay. He also would eliminate a requirement that teachers be certified by teachers colleges, saying that keeps many skilled and highly educated people out of schools.

Feinstein has introduced a bill that would set aside $50 million for 5,000 master teacher positions across the country. That could add $20,000 to a teacher’s base pay, which now averages about $45,000 in California.

Where the candidates disagree more strongly is over the role of the government. For Campbell, making education work means getting federal regulators off the backs of local decision makers. “The Constitution says nothing about a federal role in education, so I recommend that we step back, turn most K-12 decisions back over to the states, and let them decide how best to spend their funds,” Campbell said.

Feinstein said the federal role is already small, representing only 6% of total spending on elementary and secondary education.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

On Education

Where Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Tom Campbell stand on issues related to schools, teachers and education reform:

Vouchers

Feinstein: Opposes Proposition 38

Campbell: Favors experimental plan giving vouchers to poorest 10%

Federal role

Feinstein: Thinks federal role is to inspire reform

Campbell: Would limit federal role, or make federal government pay for mandated programs.

School safety

Feinstein: Says keeping schools safe from drugs and guns is a priority.

Campbell: Wants harsher sentences for those caught dealing drugs on campus.

Teacher compensation

Feinstein: Wants $20,000 pay boost for master teachers

Campbell: Backs performance-based pay.

School bonds

Feinstein: Would reduce vote needed for passage from two-thirds to 55% majority.

Campbell: Also supports 55% standard to raise money for new schools.

Class size

Feinstein: Wants to keep class and school sizes small.

Campbell: Thinks reducing class size is where money should go first.