If Reforms Fail, It Won’t Be Just Schools That Suffer

SACRAMENTO — The new governor made a comment the other day that was practically stunning in its simplicity and absence of spin. It was right to the point, profound.

In essence, it was this: Californians have limited patience. They’ll allow their elected representatives in Sacramento another two or three years to fix the schools. If the politicians fail, the voters will handle it themselves. And Democratic pols and their patron teachers unions may hate the result: private school vouchers.

Gov. Gray Davis has seen this sort of voter frustration first-hand. Two decades ago, he was chief of staff to Gov. Jerry Brown when Sacramento fumbled and fidgeted as Californians demanded property tax relief. The result was Proposition 13.

Indeed, one problem public schools suffer from today is that Proposition 13 significantly reduced a dependable source of local revenue and forced them to rely heavily on state government. With that came more state control and less local discretion.

Here’s how Davis put it in remarks last week to the Sacramento Press Club, as casually and confidently as if he had bellied up to a bar:

“One of the advantages of being around a long time is you see issues in context. And I think this is a historically important moment. And I believe we have to seize the moment. . . .

“I remember in 1978 when people didn’t take Proposition 13 seriously. . . . More recently, nobody really rose to the occasion on bilingual education to make reforms that almost everybody agreed were necessary. . . . We couldn’t get our act together. . . . People had to do it for us [with Proposition 227].

“Well, I’m telling you now: We have a chance to prove to ourselves, our children and the voters that we will make schools a wonderful opportunity for kids. . . . And they may give us two or three years to do it. But if we don’t do it, then we’re looking at vouchers or some other seemingly attractive concept that will be imposed on us by the voters.”

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The voucher movement was dealt a crushing blow in 1993 when state voters buried a “school choice” ballot initiative by 69.5% to 30.5%. Plainly, Californians objected to taking tax money from public schools and spending it to help parents send their children to private schools.

Since then, however, public support for vouchers has gradually increased. A recent statewide poll by Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California found that among likely voters, vouchers are favored by 52% to 43%. Interestingly, 59% of Latinos support vouchers, although most Latino politicians adamantly do not.

One reason for the apparent voter turnaround is that politicians of both parties have been ranting on the last couple of years about California’s “failed” school system. So the voters are saying, OK, change it. Try something different.

In the same poll, voters chose education by 6 to 1 over any other issue as the problem they consider most important for the governor and Legislature to tackle this year.

Lost in all this, it seems, is that significant reforms already have been enacted by former Gov. Pete Wilson and the last Legislature: smaller K-3 class sizes, state academic standards, statewide testing. But their full impact has not yet been felt.

Still missing are the crucial reforms Davis is pushing: Better teacher training and more “accountability” for schools, teachers and students.

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Already, there’s a voucher drive underway in the Silicon Valley. Wealthy venture capitalist Tim Draper is drafting an initiative and intends to qualify it for the March 2000 state ballot.

“I’ve looked over Gray Davis’ program,” Draper says. “It looks like more bureaucracy, more control by the state. That’s been the recipe for failure the last 20 years.”

If any voucher proposal does begin piquing voters’ interest, teachers unions will feel compelled to raise $20 million to fight it, as they did in 1993. They’d much rather spend that money on an initiative they’re contemplating to reduce the two-thirds vote requirement for passing local school bond issues.

They’d also much rather spend it on Democratic campaigns. And that, indeed, may be the biggest threat to Davis and his party--not the actual voter approval of vouchers, but the drain on a vital political money well.

Conservative strategists I’ve talked to are skeptical about prospects for a voucher initiative, given the unions’ deep pockets and lack of a wide pro-voucher political coalition.

Regardless, Davis fully understands the importance of a party in control not taxing the voters’ patience. They can get riled, sneak up on you and wreak havoc.