Angelides offers a vision for California in which education plays a major role

By Trudy Stephenson Willis

The rest is drowned out by laughter from CTA's State Council of Education delegates.

Reminding them that the sitting governor has taken California in the wrong direction, gubernatorial candidate Angelides, who's currently state treasurer, says, "I stood up to this governor even when his approval ratings were as big as his box office receipts, and I want to say I'm proud that I've been called the 'anti-Arnold.'"

Later, he adds, "I am not a Hollywood movie star." But, come November, "I hope to star in my own new film with you. It's called 'Revenge of the Nerds.'"

All kidding aside, Angelides can still bring the delegates to their feet with nothing but sheer passion for public education and vision for the state's future. "I want to be clear about the choice I'm offering California. I will stand shoulder to shoulder with you...to make sure we fully fund our schools, to make sure our kids have what they need. I will close corporate tax loopholes. I will ask multimillionaires to pay their fair share so we can be - again - best in the land. My Democratic opponent and our current governor won't do it. I will. With you, we will once again make California the place that's a model for the nation and the world. We're going to make sure that education is put first in California, not last."

When CTA's State Council voted to recommend Angelides for governor at its January meeting, among the many reasons was his steadfastness in standing with CTA when the going gets tough:

• When the governor attacked Proposition 98, Angelides was the only gubernatorial candidate to go on record as supporting the restoration of the money the governor "borrowed" from schools. He's also taken the stand that Prop. 98 is a floor, not a ceiling on funding for schools.
• When the governor proposed raising college tuition and fees at the same time he was slashing financial aid, Angelides joined with students to lead the fight to preserve the state's university system.
• In 2002, Angelides was the first statewide elected official to call for legislative approval of a $25 billion bond to repair older schools and relieve overcrowding. As state treasurer, he has a record of starting innovative programs to help students and teachers, including a tax-free college savings plan and the Extra Credit Teacher Home Purchase Program, which provides assistance to educators willing to work in struggling schools.

Now, as he tries to win the Democratic nomination for governor, he has created a comprehensive plan to ensure that every child has a highly skilled teacher in the classroom and that every teacher has the support he or she needs to do the job. It includes renewing the state's commitment to college opportunity for all, rolling back the governor's college tuition and fee increases, expanding Cal Grant opportunities, rolling back fee increases on teacher training, restoring and expanding the state's fellowship program to attract new teachers, restoring funding for programs that mentor new teachers and provide peer assistance to teachers already in the field, and doubling the number of counselors in schools.

Candidate Phil Angelides discusses his campaign with CTA's Board of Directors. At right is Board member Mignon Jackson from Los Angeles.

It doesn't hurt that he's also on the right page in the stand he's taking on the federal No Child Left Behind Act. He recognizes its deep flaws and will fight to change the law.

California has so much potential, he tells Council delegates. "We are the richest state and the wealthiest nation in human history. We are filled with idealism. We're still the frontier of innovation and invention. People look to us around this globe for inspiration and hope. But you and I know, because you see it firsthand everyday, we have immense challenges ahead of us."

The state ranks 43rd out of 50 states in what it spends to educate each child. It's 40th out of 50 states in the number of young people who go directly from high school to college. Two in five children in California schools have parents who have never been to college. One in four is an English language learner and/or is growing up in poverty.

He sees many similarities in his own family story. His grandparents, Greek immigrants, never learned the English language, but managed to be "great Americans" anyhow. His grandmother worked 15 hours a day as a seamstress to enable his grandfather to get a college degree "so that future generations of the family would have a different set of vistas."

He feels blessed that he grew up in the California of the 1950s and '60s when the common principle at the center of society was that "one generation would do anything, anything at all, so the next generation would have more knowledge, more education, more chances."

"How well we educate our kids will determine whether we have a chance to succeed in California in the 21st century," he tells cheering delegates at the April Council meeting.

"Sadly, we have been going in the wrong direction - cutting back on education, pulling money out of the classroom, turning our back on the next generation of Californians who can lead us to success and make this still the Golden State for decades to come. We became the wealthiest state in the history of humankind because we gave more chances to our people, not fewer."

"Our only chance to be the California of our dreams is to go down the high road where we have the best-educated young people in the world and can compete for the high-wage, high-skilled jobs of the 21st century, because, let's be clear, the Bush-Schwarzenegger low road is a dead end. We will never compete with Malaysia or Indonesia on lowest wages or lowest production cost of goods. If companies want cheap, uneducated labor, if they want 18-hour workdays without pensions or health care, that's not California. That's not our future."

It's clear, he says, that values have been turned upside down. "The wealthiest 1 percent of corporations have been getting $17 billion each year in tax breaks from this state and from President Bush. We've been spending our time figuring out how to allow millionaires to buy more Ferraris while we've been taking money and opportunity out of the classroom. It's wrong. Enough is enough. Let's stand up. Let's fight back."

Angelides doesn't think much of Schwarzenegger's record as governor. "All across the board, he's been a politician who has missed great opportunities."

He would not have been elected governor had he not promised to protect education, adds Angelides. After swearing over his dead body -"as alive as he looks to us today" - that he'd never suspend Prop. 98, he borrowed more than $2 billion from schools and refused to pay it back. In addition, he vilified teachers, raised college tuition and fees, and told 22,000 students that the state was too poor to make room for them in its state universities after they'd already been accepted.

"Instead of challenging Californians to use our great wealth to create wealth for generations to come, what did our governor do with the awesome power of his office? He called a wasteful and costly special election.… Because of your hard work, because you stood up for California," he tells Council delegates, the voters decided they were tired of Schwarzenegger's agenda, and they wanted change. "We're going to give it to them."

In a visit to CTA's Board of Directors as well as at Council, he makes it clear that he doesn't have all the answers to education's problems. He sees himself working with educators, "listening to your best ideas, experimenting in ways we know have a chance of succeeding for our children - we're going to do great things together."

He promises "to give this all I have."

"We're going to work our hearts out, we're going to wage a campaign of principle and passion and organization, and we're going to take back the state of California for all of our kids."

With Council delegates on their feet, applauding and waving signs in the air, he urges them to join him in rebuilding California "for the many and not the few," and helping him lift up "everyone who's been left out and locked out and left behind.

Those are our values. We're going to march with them. We're going to vote for them. And we're going to win."