California
Capitolweek #526
3/10/01
School Violence – State Buying Energy
((Melissa))
Just ahead . . .
Shots in a San Diego school renew
concerns about school safety.
It’s the deadliest school attack since
Columbine . . . .possible preventive measures are again in the spotlight
((Jack))
Plus, it’s costing the state millions of
dollars each day to keep the lights on
. . . and it will cost billions more to take over the state grid .
What happens to funding for other
pressing issues?
((
Jack))
We’ll have the latest on our energy crisis.
Hello I’m Jack Kavanagh.
And I’m Melissa Crowley. Those stories and more next.
((Melissa))
Thank you for joining us.
As the days go by, the dollars keep
adding up.
We’re talking about the millions it’s
costing to keep the power flowing . . . possibly at the expense of other state
issues.
Jack Kavanagh will have the latest on the
energy crisis and the Governor’s plan to rescue state utilities later in the
program.
But first, the latest on the high school
shooting in a suburban San Diego High school.
Two are dead, thirteen injured, and one
fifteen year old boy, a freshman, is in custody following Monday’s shooting at
Santana High School.
Witnesses say Charles Andy Williams
started shooting in a bathroom then courtyard.
Several of the 1900 students say the
suspect was often picked on and had made threats of violence before.
Flags at the state capitol were lowered
in memory of the shooting victims this week.
Some state leaders say the tragedy shows
more outreach is needed.
Begin
Soundbites
((Delaine
Eastin, Superintendent of Public Instruction))
California remains fiftieth in the number of counselors per
student, so the counseling load of the average counselor in this state is far
over what it should be.
((Bill
Lockyer, State Attorney General))
Here is another tragic example of what happens when people
are able to acquire weapons.
End
Soundbites
((Melissa))
Last month the Department of Education released the
1999-2000 safe schools assessment.
It shows the number of crimes against
persons, drug and alcohol offenses and property crimes increased over the
previous year, with drug and alcohol being the most common.
There was a 12 percent decrease in the
number of weapons found in schools.
93 percent of crimes on campus were committed
not by strangers but students, and 81 percent of suspects involved were
male.
Prevention programs run by county
departments of education saw decreases in all crime categories.
Joining me now to discuss more on school
safety and preventive measures are:
State Superintendent of Public
Instruction, Delaine Eastin and Mark Macres, a Vice Principal and former
teacher from Florin High School, a suburb outside Sacramento.
SCHOOL
SAFETY DISCUSSION
((Melissa))
Delaine, this is a heartbreak. It occurred in a middle-class, suburban neighborhood, and by all
indications, the school seemed to be doing everything right. They had counselors there, outreach
efforts. What are we missing here?
((Delaine
Eastin, Superintendent of Public Instruction))
My heart goes out to this school because they really were
doing everything right. They had a very
fine school safety plan. They did have
a counselor who was dedicated to helping to obviate moments of discrimination
and harassment and create greater understanding among students, but they had
only one [counselor] for 2,000 [students] to do that work. We remain, as I said, dead last in the
number of counselors, and we probably do need some additional resources to be
applied for safety. I don’t know what
we do exactly about the child who is not being fully supported by parents and
not really being given the kind of guidance and has easy access to guns. I do wish that someone had told one of the
school officials that this child had threatened to do these things.
((Melissa))
And that brings to mind an important subject because there
was talk about what he planned to do, and he did, in fact, tell several of his
friends. Mark, at your school you have
a very proactive effort to make sure that kids come forth to an adult or teacher. How do we encourage kids to do this? At 29 Palms, for instance, a situation was
averted because a student felt confident to come forward, but in this case,
apparently, no one did.
((Mark Macres,
Florin High School))
Well, what we’re trying to do at Florin High School is to
get our teachers and counselors and administrators to let students know that
we’re there. I think especially the
teachers because many times they’re the ones that see unusual behavior in the
classroom. I’m going to echo what Delaine
said about the counselors. Our
counselors are overworked. They’re
dealing with class schedules and career planning, and it’s difficult. Kids have to make appointments to see
counselors sometimes, and—
((Melissa))
And that’s tough in a big school. Florin has 2,300?
((Mark
Macres, Florin High School))
Correct.
((Melissa))
Is that part of the problem as well? There are so many kids in these big
California schools. It’s tough to keep
tabs on everybody.
((Mark
Macres, Florin High School))
That is part of the problem, yes.
((Delaine
Eastin, Superintendent of Public Instruction))
Well, big schools and big classrooms. When we have very few counselors, we ask
teachers to take an expanded role, and yet many teachers have five sections of
upwards of 40 children. In fact, there
are schools in Los Angeles County that have over 40 children in a typical
class, so here we are asking them to identify among the 200 students you see
every day the student who has a problem and then to find the counselor and be
able to connect with the counselor, but even at a fine school like Lowell in
San Francisco, we heard from a student from there who said, “You know, we’re
getting good counseling on the career side, but we had four attempted suicides
last year.” We have to deal with both
needs. We want to help our kids get
into the best colleges and universities or find there way into good programs in
the military or apprenticeships. On the
other hand, we want to deal with issue where they’re being abused or where
they’re being harassed, and they have to be able to have someone to talk
to. There’s also got to be the time for
teachers to communicate—and for counselors—to help communicate the importance
of talking about problems as in this case.
Such things as peer counseling and peer mediation and helping the
students to not look at the security on campus as narcs. I heard a number of these kids on television
refer to the police on campus as narcs.
That’s not a good sign. It’s
sort of the “we-they,” the adults versus the kids, rather than getting
everybody on the same page.
((Mark
Macres, Florin High School))
I agree a hundred percent on the campus security. They are a critical part of our campus, and
we have a great group of people who are serving as campus supervisors, and
you’re right. Many times the students
will go to the campus supervisors when there are issues, certainly not as
serious as what’s happened in San Diego, but—
((Melissa))
But you even have a hotline actually because that’s a big
concern for kids. They don’t want to be
seen as snitches, but you have a hotline.
There’s been one proposed, a 1-800 hotline. How effective is that for kids to have an anonymous place that
they can go to or just make a phone call if they’ve heard about something.
((Mark
Macres, Florin High School))
I think it’s good. It’s
called the “Panther Hotline;”
we’re the Florin High Panthers, and there’s a phone number there, and we get
phone calls every once in a while. Nothing
serious, but it’s posted in the counseling office and in the administration
and throughout the school, so I think it is effective.
((Melissa))
Unfortunately, there are a lot of different things that we’d
love to do in the schools, but without the funding, it’s not a reality. One thing that a lot of the parents and
students have talked about in light of the shooting is “should we have metal
detectors on our high school campuses?”
They see it as sort of a simple way, a security measure. Is that practical, and do you think that
that could make a difference?
((Delaine
Eastin, Superintendent of Public Instruction))
I think that you have to decide school by school. I don’t think that—to use Mendecino High
School as an example—I don’t think that the local school board would like to
have metal detectors at Mendecino High School, but if you are at a school where
you’ve had a number of incidents, which is why we have a school crime report,
you have to sort of make the assessment, but even in some cases doing some
other things. For example, this is the
Florin High School crisis response box.
They have two at the school; one at either end of the school. They had one at Santa Ana. We really encourage schools to develop
these. In it, you have not only the
obvious bullhorn, but you have a laminated map of the school. We have not only a crisis plan for the
school so that people know what to do, but photographs of the school’s
students, so that—
((Melissa))
In the event that something did happen?
((Delaine
Eastin, Superintendent of Public Instruction))
Right, and there’s a whole host of
other things in here that are designed to help the school respond to anything
from an awful situation as we saw in Santee or even from earthquakes or other
natural disasters that might occur. We
think that there’s been a lot of good work in terms of getting safety plans
ready. Every school has a safety plan,
and they did execute it at Santa Ana High School, so—
((Melissa))
And we should point out that, by
state law, each school is required to have an emergency crisis plan.
((Delaine Eastin, Superintendent of Public Instruction))
Right. There is still very little in the way of resources that are being
dedicated here, so often a school has to say, “Do I fix my leaky roof, or do I
put technology in my classrooms, or do I add counselors?” These are tough choices that schools have to
make. California is still below the
national average in per pupil spending.
Above the third grade, we still have the highest class size in
America. We ought to put more
investment into education and, specifically, give schools more options. If you want metal detectors, buy those. If you’d rather have security officers or
counselors or some combination of all three, we think all—fencing; a lot of our
schools are very porous, and people can walk on and off campus in ways that are
probably not good.
((Melissa))
Okay. Mark, we want
to ask you because you’ve spent twelve years as a teacher in high school. How do outreach programs work? Do kids feel comfortable coming forth? What are you hearing from the student?
((Mark Macres,
Florin High School))
I think it’s very important. Students, when we talk about teachers, really value teachers they
can talk to. I think some of the things
that you can do on high school campuses is to continually talk to teachers
about developing that relationship with the student in the classroom. Teachers are dealing with standards and the
high school exit exam and all these things, but to keep that openness there.
((Melissa))
As a teacher, someone who’s in the classroom every day, what
are you looking for when we’re talking about the students. We’ve talked about the students that feel
bullied, that they’re picked on. Who
are the “at-risk” kids? What are some
of the signs that you’re looking for?
((Mark
Macres, Florin High School))
Well, I think that’s one of them, the kid that’s picked on
or the kid that’s an A student and, suddenly, something happens. Something is going on there; there’s a
referral to the counseling office. I
think another thing that we do at Florin High School and a lot of schools do is
that we have a mentor program where we mentor young students with older
students and with adults. I think the
more contact that students can have with adults or older students, the better.
((Melissa))
We’ve talked a lot about some of the prevention and the peer
outreach. There’s been some talk
recently about starting that outreach at an even earlier age, even in
elementary school, reaching these kids that are showing some of the warning
signs long before they get to the high school level where they’re making
threats of violence. As early, as say,
ten years old. Is that something that’s
practical in California, Delaine? And
what’s the support for outreach efforts at earlier ages?
((Delaine
Eastin, Superintendent of Public Instruction))
I think it is practical, but we have an even higher ratio of
students to counselors
in elementary schools and middle schools, and we have, again, the fewest number
of school psychologists of any state, but we have done a lot of studies in
this country, not in California specifically, but some universities, some
think tanks that look at resilient adults and ask “What are some of the characteristics
of children who group up in dysfunctional families who became successful adults?”
And what we know is that, in virtually every case, they had a mentor
other than a parent. Most often, it
was a teacher or a counselor, and so they got some extra help as they were
going through life, so I think it is appropriate.
In some European countries, a group of students will stay with the
same teacher for several years so that that teacher develops an understanding
of that child. There are some things
along those lines, but I definitely think having more of an opportunity to
observe those children whose behavior changes: the outgoing child who suddenly
becomes repressed, the very bright student who suddenly starts getting bad
grades. There are lots of early warning signs, and
they do start as early as elementary school.
((Melissa))
Warning signs that all of us, not just those in the schools,
need to pay attention to. On that note,
Delaine and Mark, we want to thank you for being with us. We are out of time.
END SCHOOL SAFETY DISCUSSION
((Melissa))
In a moment, with energy in the spotlight, and a dwindling
budget surplus, what other issues may be neglected?
But first, here are some thoughts from
students on school safety and what could be done to prevent violence in the
classroom.
Begin
Soundbites
((Student))
Have police drive around.
I come from Los Angeles, so you see that a lot.
((Student))
Metal detectors so kids don’t bring weapons to school and
stuff.
((Student))
Talk about it. Like,
have assemblies about that stuff, but most schools don’t do that.
((Student))
Counselors help a lot at school. You know, like, they help a lot when you have problems with their
grades or anything. They do good[sic].
End
Soundbites
((Jack))
Time now for “At Issue,” your chance to hear behind the
scenes commentary from political insiders.
Straight talk, you won’t find anywhere else
@ ISSUE
((Jack))
The governor is inching closer to finalizing a plan to
rescue state utilities.
Both P-G and E and Southern California
Edison have tentatively agreed to sell their portion of the transmission grid.
The Governor also hopes to strike a deal with San
Diego gas and electric.
All sides still need to hammer out the details and
get federal approval, but the state is close to taking over about three fourths
of the transmission grid.
(( Jack ))
Here are other developments this week:
The Governor announced the state reached
40 long term agreements, securing power
at prices below current market rate . . . but those contracts will still cost
the state an estimated 40 billion over the next decade.
Many of the contracts do not take affect
until after summer peak periods and may not cover all of the state’s energy
needs.
And “high costs of natural gas deserve
attention.”
That’s the word from State assembly
republicans asking the Governor to call for a another special session to
address rising natural gas prices.
And legislation to help schools cover
high energy costs is making its way through the legislature.
((Jack))
Now, with the state spending millions of dollars each day
and a once robust budget surplus starting to disappear, what are the
implications for other pressing issues?
Issues like education and transportation?
Joining us now, our resident political
insiders.
Republican Political Consultant Dan
Schnur
And Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman.
((Jack))
Everything on the backburner,
Gale, all the things we talked about before the election—
((Dan
Schnur, Republican Political Consultant))
There is no electricity for the backburner. We covered that last week.
((Jack))
(Laughs) There’s no power for the backburner. Really, we’re sitting in gridlock; we still
have a housing problem, a school problem.
((Gale Kaufman,
Democratic Political Consultant))
Yeah, I think there are a lot of other things on the
backburner. I was going to be flip and
say, “Lucky for us, there are no other problems in the state but the energy
crisis,” but, in fact, there are. There
are plenty of uninsured residents; there is an education system that, up until
very recently, was number one on everybody’s mind, and you mentioned
transportation and some other, I think, critical issues that need to be
addressed, and you’ve got an entirely new group of freshmen legislators who are
up here and who, I think, came up here with there own agendas of things that
they wanted to accomplish for their districts, and they really haven’t had an
opportunity to do much of that.
((Jack))
Not only that; they came up here looking at what could have
been a ten billion dollar budget surplus in California and an opportunity to
spend money on serious problems, and that’s being eaten up by electricity
bills.
((Dan Schnur,
Republican Political Consultant))
That’s exactly right.
The money that was going to be spent on additional educational programs,
on tax cuts, on transportation, and other issues is being spent on short-term electricity
costs, but to your broader point, Jack.
Not only is the money not there, but the attention is not there
either. On the one hand, you have the
Governor, who as recently as a few months ago, wanted to be the “education”
Governor. Now, that is a distant
memory, and his plans for education reform this year—some of them good like the
extended school year; some of them sillier like paying one kind of math teacher
more than another kind of math teacher—that’s all gone because electricity is
that problem that has everyone’s attention, and that’s what he’s going to focus
on, and for the legislators—the assembly in particular seems to have taken on
the aspect of a seven year olds’ soccer game.
You know how all the kids chase after the ball? Well, now energy is the only issue, and as
Gale said, even though we have other things that we need to talk about,
legislators of both parties are running after the soccer ball, and they’re all
introducing electricity bills because that’s what’s going to get them attention,
that’s what’s going to get them media coverage, that’s what’s going to make
them be part of the big story, and these other pressing issues are being left,
by and large, on the table.
((Jack))
And there are those who say, the less the legislature gets
involved in individual people’s lives, the fewer bills that get introduced, the
better off we are. Is that right?
((Gale
Kaufman, Democratic Political Consultant))
Well, I actually think there have been less [sic] bills
introduced this year. I checked, and
there were actually several thousand, but that isn’t as high as usual, but I
also think that it isn’t like anyone is doing anything about anything but the
energy crisis, but it is a crisis,
and, I think, by it’s very nature you have to take it more seriously than
anyone else and make sure it gets solved and solved in a way that people feel
comfortable with, and then go back and look at all of the issues that have to
get addressed. There’s plenty of time
between now and September. You know,
most of the public thinks that too much time gets spent on not enough work to
begin with, so I think there’s plenty of time to solve the—
((Jack))
For the public, but they would look at the legislature, they would look
toward Sacramento and say, “Why don’t you do something? Why can’t they just fix this problem?” Why can’t they just fix this problem?
((Dan
Schnur, Republican Political Consultant))
Well, there are a million reasons you can’t solve this
problem immediately. It would be much
simpler to solve if, as Gray Davis has said himself, you were not worried on
the one hand about the political impact on himself of raising rates, and,
number two, he is justly preoccupied with the need to keep the lights on in the
summer. He signs a number of long-term
deals this week with the energy providers; it’s far too complicated for the
average citizen to understand, but it shows the appearance of forward
motion. The next problem I suspect he’s
headed for though, is even though most of those details are too complicated for
people to understand, the fact that Davis and his administration are not making
the details of the deals public is already coming up some criticism, and I
suspect that in the near future, it’s going to cause him some real political
problems as the media and as citizens—who see 40 billion dollars of their money
being spent on something—want the details of what that money is being spent on.
((Jack))
Gray Davis seems to be in a political box. If he allows rates to dramatically increase
in California, that would provoke a ballot measure that would further regulate
the electric system in California, and, at the same time, he’s also being
portrayed as someone who wouldn’t want that to happen to protect his own
reelection campaign. He can’t move, can
he?
((Gale
Kaufman, Democratic Political Consultant))
Well, I would put it a different way. I think as long as he does what make sense
and as long as the lights stay on for the summer, he can move anywhere he
wants. I don’t think he really is in a
box. I think, of course, there are
always people who will say, “Well, if you don’t do it this way, if you raise
rates, we’re going to put something on the ballot and take it over.” But
as Dan said, this is a very complicated issue, and I think that anything
that goes on the ballot is going to be carefully analyzed, and there’s going to
be more debate over that than anything else.
The nice thing that’s actually happening here is that people who never
knew what all these acronyms are for all these groups that regulate everything
all of a sudden do know, and they’re paying very close attention. So, I think it gives Gray Davis a lot more
movement than I think a lot of the articles would have you believe.
((Jack))
Sounds like he’s doing the right thing.
((Gale
Kaufman, Democratic Political Analyst))
I think so.
((Dan
Schnur, Republican Political Consultant))
Maybe, maybe not, but the long-term political peril for
Davis is as follows: Number one, he has sworn that he won’t raise rates when,
in fact, he already has by 20%, and the early analyses of these long-term deals
suggest that rates will go up quite a bit more than that.
((Jack))
Okay, just so that viewers understand, that was a 9%
emergency rate increase which was made permanent—
((Dan
Schnur, Republican Political Consultant))
Right. That is a
rate increase if you translate it into English.
((Jack))
Plus there’s another 10% from—do you recall where?
((Dan
Schnur, Republican Political Consultant))
When the original deregulation was passed—
((Jack))
There was a 10% reduction which expires.
((Dan
Schnur, Republican Political Consultant))
Which is now—
((Jack))
Yeah that’s right.
((Dan Schnur,
Republican Political))
We’re now seeing analyses of these long-term deals which
suggest that in order to pay for them, rates will need to go up 25%, if not
more. The other peril, as Gale
mentioned a moment ago, is the prospect of lights going of this summer, and
what we’re beginning to find out now is that many of these long-term deals
won’t take effect this summer, so as Davis calls for conservation, watch him
carefully because in the state of the state address, he called for 7% reduction
from consumers—
((Jack))
Yeah, it’s gone up to 10%.
((Dan
Schnur, Republican Political Consultant))
It’s gone up to 10%.
At this rate, when he’s up for reelection next October, Californians
will be expected to save almost three-quarters of their energy usage, so watch
out.
((Jack))
This from the guy who was working for Pete Wilson who—
((Gale
Kaufman, Democratic Political Consultant))
That’s right, that’s right.
((Dan
Schnur, Republican Political Consultant))
Bipartisan, unanimous support for deregulation. You know better than that, Kavanagh.
((Jack))
It was unanimously passed in both houses. So, what’s going to happen next? Is this—we’ve seen the potential candidacy
of Arnold Schwarzeneger balloon up and go down and come up again.
((Gale
Kaufman, Democratic Political Consultant))
Come up and go back down again.
((Jack))
It’s reemerged again this morning as we’re taping this program. Is Davis open for all kinds of potential
challenges now because of the energy problem?
((Gale Kaufman,
Democratic Political Consultant))
I don’t know. I
think that, at least in terms of public opinion so far, I think that people are
willing to give him the time to do the right thing, and I think that whatever
the right thing is is keeping the lights on and making sure that rates don’t go
up to a degree that people can’t tolerate.
I think that there are ways of saying and packaging things, and you have
to be careful not look tricky. As long
as you tell people what’s going on in a simple way—and I think with the
long-term contracts, you will see enough information so that we will know how
much the bonds are going to cost and how much we’ve taken, and he’ll be fine.
((Jack))
Sounds like what Gale is saying from what she’s hearing on
her side of the aisle, Davis’ support is pretty strong, and things are going
along pretty well even though we’re in a difficult crisis. What are you hearing on your side?
((Dan
Schnur, Republican Political Consultant))
Davis is vulnerable, no doubt about it, but in order for
that vulnerability to be realized, the Republicans have to be more vocal and
more aggressive in pressing for alternative solutions—
((Gale
Kaufman, Democratic Political Consultant))
They have to have something to say.
((Dan Schnur,
Republican Political Consultant))
And, of course, they do if they talk a little bit
louder. You can talk about rate
rebates; you can talk about the fact that Davis is raising rates; you can talk
about the fact that additional peak power supply that will keep the lights from
going off this summer that Davis is still dickering with negotiations on. There’s plenty to say; the question is,
who’s going to say it? Bill Jones has
been telling people that he has been getting ready to make a decision about
running. As he comes closer to that
decision, I suspect he’ll be more aggressive, but to this point, no elected
Republican officials have been sufficiently vocal or aggressive in making the
case against Davis, so as vulnerable as he is, right now no one is taking
advantage of it—
((Jack))
He just made your point.
((Gale
Kaufman, Democratic Political Consultant))
Yeah, it’s one thing to make your case against Davis. It’s another thing to have something more
meaningful or better to say, and unless there’s some Republican consumer
advocate that I don’t know about who is getting ready to run against Gray
Davis, I don’t think any of the names that have emerged have any creditability
on this issue at all, and, while he wasn’t an expert in electricity until
recently, he now has the expertise, so I think it’s a tough road to hoe.
((Jack))
We’re all becoming experts on energy matters. Dan Schnur, thank you very much. Gale Kaufman, thank you very much.
Now, here’s where you can find out more
on the state energy issues.
END
@ ISSUE
((Melissa))
Let’s take a look at what you had to say about
last week’s discussion on natural gas
and the energy crisis.
David from Elk Grove writes:
“The problem is that no one seems willing to
fess up to the truth. Energy producers
saw California’s deregulation as a gold mine ripe for the picking.”
Len from Sacramento writes:
“Governor Davis is nearsightedly focusing only
on the state’s electrical crisis. He should devote more time to natural gas.”
((Jack))
And M-W from Los Angeles writes:
“The market power of the owners of interstate
gas pipelines needs much greater attention. It is in all gas equity owners
interest to take advantage of spot market supply and storage constraints.”
((Melissa))
That’s our show for this week.
Next week, we’ll examine what’s being done to
prevent youth from turning to violence.
((Jack))
And what we can do to make sure they do not have access to weapons.
Until then,
Thanks so much for joining us.
((Melissa))
We’ll see you next time.