Energy Crisis Isn’t Pulling the Plug on Davis’ School Plans

Education no longer is Gov. Gray Davis’ “first, second and third priorities,” as he repeatedly told us his first two years in office. Not now that electricity costs have surged and Californians are incessantly harassed with blackout threats.

In truth, education has dropped to Davis’ second priority--a distant second. If there are no lights, no kids can learn.

Still, Davis won’t abandon school reform just because there’s a new hot issue voters care more about. He positioned himself long ago as The Education Governor. To walk away now would jeopardize full implementation of his reforms and raise questions about his earlier sincerity.

Moreover, the governor reads polls. Education remains high on the voters’ list of important state problems, even if it did slide to No. 2 behind the energy crisis in a recent Times poll.

So Davis did pay some attention to education in creating the $105-billion state budget proposal he sent legislators last week. In fact, it’s about the only budget matter he did focus on before shipping off his spending plan to the printer.

This notorious micro-manager was so absorbed with electricity--fighting the “out-of-state profiteers”--that, for the first time, he delegated practically all the budget drafting to trusted aides.

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Early in the budget planning, Davis sent a team of senior aides around the state to solicit the opinions of teachers, principals, parents and local experts about what reforms should be adopted next.

Leave us alone, many pleaded. Let us catch up with the reforms already ordered.

But out of these dozen meetings with small groups came the controversial idea for expanding the junior high school year by six weeks. Teachers said they wanted more time--more days--to teach. The toughest to teach were the rebellious middle school kids with exploding hormones.

The worst students, especially, “have this backslide over the summer,” says Kerry Mazzoni, Davis’ new education advisor, a former Marin County assemblywoman and school board member. “By September, they’re further behind than when school ended in June.”

You want bold? Davis proposed keeping these jumpy kids in class for an extra 30 school days. That would extend their school year from 180 days to 210, highest in the nation--something to crow about if he runs for president.

Districts could opt in or out. Those opting in would get a 17% boost in state funding, most of it to pay teachers. The state cost: $100 million the first year, growing to nearly $1 billion by the third.

“It’s really imperative we give kids in middle school more seat time,” Davis told reporters.

But it’ll never sell in the Legislature. Try maybe one week, two at the most.

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The heads of both education committees--Assemblywoman Virginia Strom-Martin of Sonoma County and Sen. John Vasconcellos of Santa Clara--are lukewarm to Davis’ idea. Rather than just following the governor this year, these Democrats have adopted their own education agenda and it focuses on low achievers.

Many urban students, especially in L.A., couldn’t go to school longer than they now do because classrooms already are filled all year, these lawmakers note. Davis’ response is that there’s flexibility in his proposal: Districts merely could extend the school day.

“What kids need more than extra seat time is lower class size,” Strom-Martin asserts.

Davis didn’t propose more class-size reduction because there’s an acute teacher shortage, aides say.

Delaine Eastin, state superintendent of public instruction, long has advocated a longer school year. But she thinks “it is a little stunning to go from 180 to 210 days overnight.”

“It makes more sense,” she says, to add just 10 or 15 days and extend the longer year to more grades--like fourth through 12th.

Wayne Johnson, president of the California Teachers Assn., worries about burnout. “Teaching is very intense--keeping kids in their seats, keeping them focused. Teachers and kids need some break,” says the former L.A. high school teacher. “I know we sound like crybabies. But it’s the hardest job I’ve ever had. And I’ve hauled hay as a kid, worked on an auto assembly line and run a union.”

Johnson adds, however: “I’m not ready to beat up on the governor. Let’s field test this at low-performing schools. See what’s good and bad about it. . . .

“The governor, he’s trying. Coming up with ideas.”

Ideas also such as math and language refresher training for 250,000 teachers--and a major drive to attract new algebra instructors.

But Davis knows the political math: The voters’ No. 1 concern equals his No. 1 priority. And right now that’s not education, it’s electricity.