(From Daily News Los Angeles, December 16th, 2010)
GIVEN the importance of California’s public schools, you’d think the critical decisions that affect the education of our children would be debated and vetted with all due diligence in Sacramento. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
Votes on education policy are often determined by a single question asked in back rooms: Does the CTA support it?
Apparently, the unwritten rule is that if the California Teachers Association supports an education bill, then the Democrat-controlled Legislature can pass it. The reason? Money, lots of it. CTA is one of the biggest spenders on lobbying in Sacramento in the past decade, according to the California Fair Political Practices Commission. If the powerful CTA opposes a bill – or a candidate – it has the money to make sure it goes away.
So says termed-out state Sen. Gloria Romero, who championed education reform such as the Parent Trigger Law while serving as chairwoman of the Senate’s Education Committee. She should know; she was pounded by the CTA in the primary race for state superintendent of public instruction, which mobilized to make sure she didn’t get elected. It worked. Of the three top candidates, she came in third.
When Romero sought partners to push education reform legislation, she had to rely on Republicans and a handful of Democrats willing to buck the CTA. There’s nothing wrong with bipartisanship, but in a Democrat-controlled Legislature, successful bills need strong Democrat support.
But, Romero found, her fellow Democrats were afraid to bite the hand that feeds them – or, more accurately, antagonize the interest group that spends tremendous amounts of money and manpower supporting Democratic candidates. Too often, legislators who could be persuaded to support reforms essential for California public schools – such as using student scores as a measure of teacher performance and making it easier to convert traditional schools to charters – buckle for fear of losing CTA support in their next election.
It’s politics, pure and simple. And, Romero knows, the only way to counter politics is with politics. That’s why she signed on to head the California chapter of Democrats for Education Reform, or “DeeFER” for short.
The political action committee has already set up chapters in New York and Colorado, and has been able to raise money from local donors and foundations to support education reform-minded candidates. DeeFER and its supporters are now looking to get into the battle over reform brewing in Los Angeles and California.
“I don’t think we’ve ever seen a moment like this for reform,” Romero said last week when she talked with Daily News editors and reporters about her new job. What she meant was that a number of factors have aligned to shape up 2011 as a banner year for the clash between reform and status quo.
The California branch of DeeFER will add force – and money – to the growing reform movement in this state led by organizations such as the Gates Foundation, Parent Revolution and the California Charter School Association. It will counter the CTA’s big money with money from classic sources such as charters and foundations. It will back candidates who might support new programs and ideas and ways of teaching at the state level and even in local school board races. True reform starts at home.
Romero is right; next year is likely to be a watershed one for the control of education in California. Elections, such as the March race for the Board of Education for L.A. Unified, will be fierce campaigns with millions of dollars spent. At least now, with a new PAC in town, it won’t come from just one side.
– A Los Angeles Daily News editorial. To read more editorials from the Daily News, go to www.dailynews.com/opinions
Copyright ©2010 Los Angeles Newspaper Group.