THE BIG ENCHILADA

But a Democratic victory in the California governor’s race would tell us little about public opinion. Bill Clinton has carried California twice, with the same blend of cultural liberalism and economic moderation that Checchi, Harman, and Davis are banking on. The cultural issues the Democrats will use against Lungren — “choice, tobacco, and guns,” as Harman puts it — are established winners for Democrats in the Pacific states. And though Republicans have held the California governorship for 16 years, Democrats came close to winning it the last two times it was open (Tom Bradley in 1982 and Dianne Feinstein in 1990). A win this year would not necessarily mean that California or the country had moved left.

In fact, it might mean the opposite. For what California Democrats are saying on education shows that opinion on this leading issue has moved sharply to the right. Checchi, Harman, and even Davis sound very much like William Bennett or Chester Finn. They have repudiated the dogma of the teachers unions, whose political slaves Democrats heretofore have been.

The education debate is more starkly drawn in California than anywhere else. Back in the 1950s and ’60s, the California school system seemed a model for the nation. It expanded to meet a vast population influx, adding a huge community-college system (Lungren calls it “a jewel”), and produced some of the nation’s highest test scores.

But that was another California. About 20 years ago, the state embarked on an experiment, backed by Democrats and never effectively opposed by Republicans, that can be described with only slight exaggeration as a decision to stop teaching children to speak, read, and write English. Those with custody of the public-school system — the schools of education, the teachers unions, the school administrators, and the Democrats in Willie Brown’s Assembly who blocked any possibility of reform — adopted policies of bilingual education and whole-language reading instruction that left California ranking 49th in the country on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The affluent Left, epitomized by the wealthy donors of Westside Los Angeles, actively supported this experiment, and the affluent Right, epitomized by the Orange County Lincoln Club, responded with blank indifference. These groups could send their children to private schools, and who cared about the immigrant kids anyway? As Al Checchi said in late April, when asked whether he sent his children to public school, “Of course not. Why would I do that?”

But after 20 years, the contrast between California’s highly competent private economy and its highly incompetent public schools — between Silicon Valley and the public-education system — has become too stunning to ignore. ” We can’t lead the nation and the world in prosperity and opportunity if we continue to accept schools that are falling behind,” says candidate Checchi. ” We’re enjoying a good measure of prosperity. The only threat to that prosperity is our K through 12 system,” according to Gray Davis, who has held high state office for 23 of the last 25 years and is supported by the very teachers unions that have influenced the school system more than anyone else. Noting the mismatch between the supply of unskilled labor produced by public schools and the demand for skilled workers produced by the private economy, Davis goes on, “We are not growing our own. We have to import people from Asia and Europe.”

On the education issue, these politicians are struggling to keep up with the people they seek to lead. Others have already taken action. High-tech millionaire Ron Unz and Orange County teacher Gloria Matta Tuchman put Proposition 227 on the June ballot, to stop the practice of teaching non- English-speaking pupils in their native language (a practice known as ” foreign-language instruction”) and instead provide them one year of ” sheltered immersion,” instruction in English, but with special allowances for the linguistic transition they are going through. In a late-April Field poll, Prop. 227 led 71-21 percent, and 58-41 percent among Latinos.

Despite its popularity, the three Democrats all oppose Prop. 227, and Lungren has so far declined to back it, for fear of undermining local control (though he admits that the huge Los Angeles Unified district will be among the last to embrace reform on its own). All four, however, criticize current bilingual-education policies to some degree. Bill Honig, meanwhile, the man who as state superintendent introduced whole-language instruction, now is calling for more use of phonics. And outgoing governor Pete Wilson, who allowed class size to balloon, has put up the money to cap classes at 20 kids in kindergarten through grade three.

Of all the candidates, Checchi has the most detailed proposals. He spent a year traveling the state studying government. Most of the coverage of his campaign emphasizes the $ 50 million he is spending on television ads, but his command of issues is impressive, and so is his feel for how government affects ordinary people. “We need radical change, because we have had radical failure,” he says. “Restoring the educational system is my first, second, and third priority.” He would end “social promotion,” calling for tutoring and summer school for kids who fail achievement tests, then retention of those who still perform below grade level. He would lengthen the school day. He would start compulsory preschool immersion programs for kids who don’t speak English and allow a maximum of two years of foreign-language instruction, with tutoring after that if necessary. He would lift the cap on the number of charter schools and try to make educators more “entrepreneurial.” He would like to see private-school choice “some day” and calls for more school-to- work programs. Responding to polls and to what he has learned in his travels, Checchi says, “We have to spend right, not just spend more.”

Harman is much less specific but no less critical of the school system her party helped build. “Bilingual education has failed,” she says. “The goal is to make every child proficient in English. Let communities figure out how to do it.” She favors competency tests for students and holding principals accountable for schools. She wants small classes up through 12th grade. Vocational education should produce a workforce that can use advanced technology, she says, as workers do at her husband’s Harman Industries plant in Northridge. Harman talks a lot about her skills at listening to others and forging consensus. She would “work with communities, listen to their ideas, generate something from the grass roots.” Pabulum perhaps, but she is not looking for guidance solely from those who have had custody of the schools for the last 25 years. She opposes the proposal of state superintendent Delaine Eastin, a teachers-union favorite, to raise per-pupil expenditures to the national average.

Davis, who depends heavily on teachers unions and other traditionally Democratic groups, has used his considerable intellectual skills to come up with reforms that won’t antagonize them. But even he employs rhetoric tinged with scorn for the current system. When asked why the system has deteriorated during his 23 years in state government, he talks wanly about how 1978’s Proposition 13 cut revenues for schools, but then launches into fairly sharp criticism of the status quo. “We need to ask more of everyone, students, teachers, parents,” he says. “If kids don’t meet standards, they should go to summer school or be held back.” On bilingual education, he would set a three- year limit on foreign-language instruction, and perhaps a two-year limit in elementary grades. He would spend $ 3 billion on textbooks; Los Angeles Unified can’t seem to get them into children’s hands. He would copy Chicago’s practice of having every parent sign a contract promising to spend one hour a month in the children’s schools and 20 minutes a night helping with homework. He would have the state take over poorly performing schools. He would have teacher performance reviewed by peers every year, with recertification every five years. On whole language, he says, “I’m more inclined to basics for the 21st century — a heavy dose of phonics, memorizing multiplication tables. Some of my supporters” — the teachers unions — “don’t agree,” he says. “But school is not about teachers, it’s about students.”

Lungren has supported education reform for years, but with no serious primary opponent and every reason to conserve money for a general-election race against a self-financing millionaire, he waited until April to run TV ads and come up with an education plan of his own. “Education would have been a Democratic issue four years ago,” he says, “but people have moved beyond the answer that money is the sole remedy.” Bilingual education he calls “a massive failure.” He would discard new math and whole language for basic math and phonics, with student skill tests every year. “We need greater flexibility at the local level, with strict statewide standards, and accountability from teachers, from students, from administrators.” He favors greater choice of schools, moving toward vouchers. He favors smaller classes and greater flexibility for school districts. He favors a proposed November ballot initiative that would ease requirements for charter schools and encourage the founding of charter schools in low-performing school districts. He has already succeeded in getting more places reserved at the University of California and the California State University system for community-college graduates. Harking back to the 1950s, he says, “I want to see California the kind of state I thought it was when I was growing up.”

Of course there is no guarantee that any of these candidates would follow through on these reforms. And it is easy to see how some reforms could be sabotages by teachers unions and education bureaucrats — what Bill Bennett calls “the Blob.” But it is clear that the voters of California, speaking through these four candidates, are issuing a stinging rebuke to the public- school establishment.

They are demanding that kids be taught to speak, read, and write English. And there is no reason to think opinion is very different in other states. True, the situation is not quite as dire elsewhere, the contrast with a golden past not so glaring, the mismatch between a competent private economy and incompetent public schools not so obvious. But the point has general application. Voters are fed up with the work of the education apparat. They are ready to vote not for the candidate who promises to spend most on public schools but for the one who promises to change them most dramatically.

One might suppose that this would give a big advantage to Republicans. But not necessarily. California is an apolitical commonwealth, where most media do not cover state government or politics (no Los Angeles or San Francisco TV station has a bureau in Sacramento), and any of these four candidates for governor could have walked into a shopping mall in January without being recognized. That gives an enormous advantage to the celebrity candidate (Ronald Reagan, Jerry Brown) and to the candidate who can spend vast sums of personal money. And it gives a big advantage to the candidate who has the discipline to concentrate on two or three popular arguments in his very limited time in the spotlight: This is how Pete Wilson, despite an acerbic personality, a small local base (San Diego), and middling poll ratings, has twice been elected senator and twice governor.

The Democrats in this race have similar skills. They are articulate graduates of elite schools who are adept at speaking in politically attractive language responsive to the polls. None grew up in California: Davis went to Stanford, returned to the state after law school, and immediately ran for office; Harman did attend high school in Los Angeles for a couple of years and lived there as a young adult, but has spent most of the last 20 years in Washington; Checchi, who grew up in Maryland and worked in Texas and Minnesota, moved to Beverly Hills while making money at Northwest Airlines. They are in tune with the secular sensibility that dominates such public discourse as there is in California.

Lungren has a different background. He was educated in Catholic schools (Notre Dame, Georgetown) and is the California version of a small-town by, the son of Richard Nixon’s physician who grew up in Long Beach when it was an Ozzie-and-Harriet suburb. He is less smooth and poll-driven than the Democrats, unafraid to stand up for his strong and, in some cases, unpopular views. In a pro-choice state, he proudly proclaims his opposition to abortion. But he is also politically adept enough to point out that on the only abortion issues likely to arise — parental consent, partial-birth abortion, and public funding — he stands with the large majority of voters. Lungren shows a solid command of the issues and a knowledge of state government that make him at least a match for any of the Democrats. Perhaps more important, he has the sunny optimism and self-confidence of the California of the 1950s, a time many look back on with longing, even though most voters don’t remember it. He is ready to take on the three Democrats in a May televised debate, apparently confident of winning, however much they spend.

This is a race that could go to either party. The most recent polls show Democrats, who have been on the air more, leading Lungren in general-election pairings, but all the candidates poll under 50 percent. The outcome will have great practical political significance. But on education, the returns are already in. Three able and ambitious Democrats are harshly attacking the education policy that the Democratic party has backed for the last quarter century. Conservatives have carried the education issue, and in the long run, that should have much more significance for how Americans live than who becomes the next governor of California.

Michael Barone is senior staff editor at Reader’s Digest and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.