GOVERNOR'S REFORMS SEEN AS ATTACKS ON JOB SECURITY, BUDGET

Diane Gleason, a math teacher at Palo Alto's Gunn High School, has been teaching for 14 years. She's been politically active before -- but never more concerned about an election than the one coming up on Nov. 8.

"The governor has put these initiatives out there like this is the way to save California,'' said Gleason, who is active in local union efforts to defeat a trio of education initiatives. "Why us? What is it about teachers that somehow we are responsible for everything that is wrong with the state?''

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says teachers are too hard to fire, their union is too powerful and the state's $60 billion education budget is too heavily protected in a time when California's economy needs more flexibility.

The Nov. 8 special election is often characterized as a referendum on Schwarzenegger. But no group has more invested in the outcome than the state's 300,000 public school teachers, who have frequently been among his most vocal critics. A triple-whammy of propositions -- 74, 75, 76 -- directly targets teachers and the influential unions that represent them. At stake: tenure and job security, how union dues are used, and the size and stability of the state's education budget.

Reform efforts

The governor and his allies say the measures are long-overdue reform efforts that will weed classrooms of bad teachers, improve schools, give public employees more control over how their union dues are spent and rein in state spending.

• Proposition 74 extends the time it takes public school teachers to become permanent employees from two to five years and makes it easier to fire veteran educators.

• Proposition 75 prohibits public employee labor unions, such as the California Teachers Association, from using member dues for political contributions without annual consent from employees, which some say is designed to weaken the union's formidable political clout in Sacramento.

• Proposition 76 restricts state spending increases, gives the governor more budget authority and rewrites part of the minimum school funding guarantee known as Proposition 98.

The special election is a volatile showdown between the governor and the CTA, which has raised dues and spent more than $50 million to defeat the measures, and it has grown increasingly acrimonious in the campaign's frenetic final days.

Republican political consultant Mark Bogetich says the election is partly a referendum on the CTA's dominance in state politics. He said the amount of money the union has spent to defeat the initiatives has stunned him, likening the duel to a high-stakes poker game.

"The CTA pushed all their chips into the middle of the table,'' he said. "They think they have a better hand than the governor. And on Nov. 8 both sides have to lay their cards on the table.''

The long-running feud between the governor and teachers stretches back to a broiling dispute about voter-approved Proposition 98, a 1988 measure that guarantees schools a minimum of state and property tax revenue each year. Education groups say they agreed to temporarily suspend Proposition 98 funding in December 2003 to help ease the state's dire fiscal problems -- with the caveat that funding would be restored when California's economy improved.

Dispute over funds

But in his State of the State address in January, Schwarzenegger announced the $2 billion educators feel they were promised would be funneled to other big-ticket state expenses, such as transportation. Educators were stunned and furious; Schwarzenegger and his allies have denied such an agreement was ever struck.

Teachers immediately blasted the governor for allegedly reneging on the original deal, shadowing him at public appearances across the state and puncturing his once-lofty approval ratings. Some say the trio of initiatives is an attempt to settle the score.

"We're the ones who spoke up,'' said Fred Glass of the California Federation of Teachers, the smaller of the two teachers unions. "We're the ones who revealed that he broke his promise to repay $2 billion to public schools. This is payback for the temerity of speaking up.''

With voter turnout a huge question mark, neither side is taking anything for granted. The latest poll from the Public Policy Institute of California shows that 81 percent of likely voters are closely or somewhat closely following news about the special election, compared with 69 percent in September. But none of the measures that Schwarzenegger considers his "Top Props'' enjoys majority support.

Teachers such as Mary Rosentel are trying to keep it that way.

On Wednesday, Rosentel, a math and science teacher at San Jose's Broadway High School, headed straight from school to the offices of the San Jose Teachers Association.

Teachers in red union T-shirts worked more than a dozen phone lines, urging likely voters to get to the polls next Tuesday. Plans are under way for highly visible get-out-the-vote efforts in front of local schools Nov. 7, so Rosentel crouched on the floor to make posters.

"I'm not a very political person,'' said Rosentel, 30, thick red magic marker in hand. "But just thinking about what the governor is trying to do is scary.''

Lance Izumi, director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute, says the three education initiatives have deeply rattled the California Teachers Association. He stressed that the union has reacted so violently to the initiatives that the association appears "heavy-handed and ham-fisted'' -- more like a special interest than local classroom teachers.

Izumi suspects that some teachers -- albeit quietly and privately -- support Proposition 74, which makes it easier to remove incompetent teachers from the classroom. In some ways, the ballot measures are designed to expose rifts between the union leadership and rank and file members, he said.

And he's not surprised that the teachers union is up in arms about Proposition 75, which requires the union to get consent from members before spending their dues on political contributions.

"Their whole power base is based on money, and the ability to raise tons of it,'' Izumi said. "If there's any chance that someone is going to tamper with that, they are going to fight tooth and nail.''