Speech by President Pro Tem Don Perata

Sacramento Press Club

February 16, 2005

 

Today I want to talk about what’s important to me.

Education.

I am a credentialed teacher who spent 16 years teaching high school students at Saint Joseph, Encinal and Alameda High. I taught English literature, writing, civics, economics and leadership. And I loved it.

I’m now senate Pro Tem - I didn’t know how good I had it!

The Governor has correctly identified education as a broken system. But he’s on the wrong track to fix it.

It’s frankly easy to state the problem. It’s much harder to solve it - ask anyone who’s taken calculus.

Education should be an equal opportunity to learn for every child. Learning disabled, English language learners, impoverished families are of course factors in equal opportunity. 

The Governor wants to arbitrarily cap spending for school children. That’s wrongheaded. School kids are not a “beast to be starved.”

The Governor wants to blame the teachers. Wait a minute: the state right now sets teaching standards and certifies teachers who meet the standards.

Our teachers are well-trained and dedicated professionals. Instead of micro managing them from the capitol cheap seats, we need to get out of their way.

We don’t tell cops how to police, firefighters how to fight fires or doctors how to save lives. Why should teachers be any different?

We add new sections to the education code each year - now the size and as readable as Joyce’s Ulysses - and then the next class of legislators spends their term making exceptions or changing directions.

We are caught in a circle without escape. I’m tired of spinning my wheels.

Schools must have more local control and flexibility. We don’t have all the answers here.

That’s what Education Committee Chairman Jack Scott heard repeatedly at a town hall last Friday in Fresno - a district going bankrupt. That’s why his committee will hold a town hall in Salinas tomorrow - another district going bankrupt.

Our senate committees are going to these and other communities to listen. To listen to parents, teachers and students. What it’s like in today’s school, today’s classroom.

I taught next to a special education teacher for eight years. Ernie Ellis was a dedicated and as fine a teacher you could find. But I saw what he went through each year.

He was everything but handcuffed trying to apply the codes made from afar to teach these children.

I taught at two high schools as dissimilar as imaginable - one whose enrollment from Navy families changed 50% a year - yet I was bound by the same state rules and regulations.

If there is a good reading program, why not let the parents and teachers decide if it fits their students’ needs? Let them determine how to prepare children to read and pass our myriad number of tests.

(By the way, why is the STATE board of education approving text books used in as diverse places as Wheatland or Chino)?

There is a collective wisdom among Californians that they have demonstrated at every election. They have solutions that make sense. They are on the receiving end.

We are determined to make our schools better. But whatever we decide, the emphasis has to be on getting more money into the classroom and more local flexibility how to spend it.

Ours is a talented group of lawmakers that I have the honor to serve with - we are ready to work with the Governor for real reform of our school system. And we are up to the job!