Jerry Brown still a star with teachers unions

In his first major appearance since winning the Democratic primary, gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of teachers Sunday, preaching the need for frugality and innovation but offering few specifics on how he would fix California’s ailing education system or other problems plaguing the state.

Addressing nearly 800 delegates of the California Teachers Assn. at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, the attorney general made no mention of his Republican challenger, Meg Whitman. But as the campaign leading up to the Nov. 2 general election kicks off in earnest, Brown cast himself as the candidate with the ability to mobilize a polarized electorate and regain the trust of the public.

“The thing we need going forward is an honest conversation and discussion with the people of California,” Brown said. “This is a democracy. It’s not enough to have ideas, you have to have the skills to engage all of the people of the state.”

He acknowledged, though, that with the state facing a $19-billion deficit, residents will have to accept a measure of “austerity.”

“There’s no smoke and mirrors here, we’re in a crisis and we’re not going to get over it in a day or two,” Brown said.

If his mostly off-the-cuff remarks lacked details, his reception testified to the former two-term governor’s enduring appeal to a key faction of the Democratic Party. The 325,000-member association, which represents public school teachers, counselors, librarians and other staff, endorsed Brown in January. The group will deliver money and volunteers as the campaign moves forward, said spokeswoman Becky Zoglman.

Sunday morning, delegates chanted “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry.” They roared approval when Brown called for teacher-initiated reform and when he disparaged the federal government’s Race to the Top initiative and its emphasis on testing and data collection. They laughed as he recounted one teaching foray as a young Jesuit in a catechism class where his skills were admittedly lacking.

“I never got control,” Brown told the upbeat room. “I didn’t lose control because I never gained it.”

Whitman, the former EBay chief, has made education a key component of her campaign, vowing to direct more education spending to classrooms and to raise statewide test scores. In his remarks to the teachers, Brown did not address education spending, but spoke of the need to improve teacher training and to fix social and economic barriers that hamper learning.

Though Brown founded two high-performing charter schools as mayor of Oakland, he was also criticized for failing to make wider improvements in the public school system. But on Sunday, his words resonated with delegates.

“He’s a strong advocate for education and knows what’s going on in the classroom and that it’s not just about numbers and tests, but teaching the whole child,” said Mary Rose Ortega, a third-grade teacher at First Street Elementary in Boyle Heights. “He spoke from the heart and understands that improving education is not going to be an easy task.”

carla.rivera@latimes.com