Davis Keeps Pushing Education, but Public Support Fading

When Gov. Gray Davis took office last year, he called education his “first, second and third priority.” A series of Davis-sponsored school reforms soon sped through the Legislature.

This year, the governor made education the centerpiece of his State of the State address, which outlined his broad policy priorities for the coming months. Last week, when Davis unveiled his budget, he pledged, “We must give our children the tools they need, and I won’t rest until we do so.”

He could get very tired.

As Davis continues to trumpet his education agenda, there appear to be a few clouds forming on the political horizon that could make it harder for him to keep his promise of improvement. Some clouds he has seeded. For several of Davis’ “new” initiatives, actual budget appropriations don’t come close to the bold rhetoric of his speech. He loves to embrace popular issues but recoils from doling out big bucks for programs or embracing tax increases to fund them.

Still, education got the biggest share of the record $88-billion spending plan, thanks mostly to the guaranteed school-funding levels set by Proposition 98 and a massive surplus created by the state’s booming economy. But the question remains whether the governor’s “prudent and careful” approach to funding reform will produce higher test scores before Davis stands for reelection.

Throughout the 1998 gubernatorial campaign, polls registered education as the top concern of California voters; they still do. This election year, kids, particularly middle-class kids of moderate, swing voters, are “in.” That reality is reflected in Davis’ offer of scholarships to students with top test scores, disproportionately the children of middle- and upper-income families.

But there are indications in the most recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California that support for education is not as uncomplicated or unwavering as the ever-cautious Davis would like. According to the PPIC January 2000 survey, “Californians are even more likely to rate the quality of K-12 public schools as a ‘big problem’ today (53%) than they were two years ago (46%).” Interestingly, Latinos, a key Davis constituency, were less likely than non-Latino whites to view education as a problem; just 36% labeled it a “big problem,” as compared with 57% of non-Latino whites.

Only 22% of respondents indicated California’s public schools improved “in the past few years,” while 39% thought they’d gotten worse. Again, Latinos were more positive in their evaluation. The percentage of Latinos who viewed schools as having improved (37%) was more than twice that of non-Latino whites (17%), and Latinos were half as likely to see the state’s public schools as having gotten worse (22% to 44%).

Despite Davis’ ability to parlay a pledge to fix schools into a successful campaign issue, just a slim majority of survey respondents (51%) indicated they approved of the way he is handling the K-12 system; 38% disapproved. Latinos showed stronger approval (62%), perhaps reflecting their more positive view of the schools system in general. Notwithstanding all the hoopla, one in five Californians (21%) didn’t know enough to evaluate Davis’ educational moves.

There’s more potential static for Davis in PPIC’s findings. Since last September, the institute has tracked voter attitudes toward Proposition 26 on the March ballot, which would lower the percentage of votes necessary to pass local school bond issues from two-thirds to a simple majority. In the latest go-round, the ballot language was read to respondents for the first time. It includes statements that indicate the measure could raise property taxes and potentially cost school districts “hundreds of millions of dollars statewide” each year.

Public support for Proposition 26 drops sharply after the ballot language is read, from 76% in September to 44% in January. In one of the more interesting findings, support for the initiative is lowest among voters in the Los Angeles region (39%), perhaps reflecting a lack of confidence in the beleaguered Los Angeles Unified School District.

The survey report warns that “while voters have consistently identified schools as the state’s most pressing problem, many apparently do not see increasing their local property taxes as part of the solution.” If Californians won’t vote to pay for needed improvements, would the governor and the Legislature have the courage to make the hard political and fiscal choices themselves?

Davis has firmly indicated his antipathy toward increasing taxes. That’s likely to put him squarely at odds with the politically powerful California Teachers Assn. The union is working to place on the November ballot an initiative aimed at raising California’s per-pupil education spending to the national average (estimated anywhere from $6,900 to $7,500) in a series of steps over five years. But if it takes a tax increase to raise the estimated $5 billion needed to close the gap, Davis has said he won’t support the initiative.

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper is gathering signatures for an initiative that would tie publicly funded vouchers for private schools to an increase in the national spending average for public-school students, without specifying a tax increase, but Davis has long opposed vouchers.

According to the Associated Press, the most recent figures available from the National Education Assn. (1996-97) rank California 41st among the states in per-pupil spending. Polls indicate Californians support moving toward the national average, something both the CTA and Draper initiatives address. Davis insists “we cannot win this battle simply by throwing money at it,” but he could face political risk if opposition to these ballot measures makes him look like an obstacle to adequate funding. So it’s not surprising that Davis included in his budget an increase of $268 in per-pupil spending, from $6,045 to $6,313 a year.

Davis’ path to improving California schools appears dotted with political land mines that may prove unavoidable if he’s to deliver on his promises. He reportedly told one group he would not seek reelection if students’ test scores do not rise.

Ironically, if our risk-averse governor really wants to win his self-styled “war for the future,” he may come to deserve the title “the most fearless governor in America,” which Time magazine prematurely awarded him. But not for the reasons Davis would choose. *