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Bock: Increase school funding

Rob Cunningham
Saturday April 01, 2000

By Rob Cunningham 

Daily Planet Staff 

 

Disparity in public education remains a central part of Audie Bock’s agenda, a year after her surprise election to the California State Assembly. 

“We’ve really been mistreating our kids,” she said Friday during the weekly gathering of the City Commons Club. “(Improving our schools) requires a commitment of our taxpayer money to go into education on a much larger scale than we’re spending right now.” 

Monday marks the start of Bock’s second year representing the 16th Assembly District, which includes Piedmont, Alameda and much of Oakland. During the last year, she has gone from the insurgent challenger who shocked the East 

Bay political system to a incumbent who has to gather enough signatures by August to appear on this fall’s ballot. 

A year ago, Bock pulled an upset and won her Assembly race against former Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris, who used to hold the 16th District seat. She became a self-described “guerrilla legislator,” as the only member of Green Party serving in the Legislature. 

But in October, she withdrew from the Green Party in a politically risky move. Had she retained her Green affiliation, her name would have appeared on the March primary ballot. No one doubted whether Bock would win her party’s nomination. But the issue was how well she’d fare against the other candidates, particularly Democrat Wilma Chan, president of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. Fund-raising squabbles with members of her own party also factored into Bock’s decision to become an independent, skip the March primary and focus her efforts on gathering signatures for that her name can appear on the November ballot. 

But Bock, a product of the Berkeley public school system, believes that her record could carry her to victory again. Granted, it’s taken time to build that record: When she arrived in Sacramento last year, the deadline had already passed for any bills to be introduced, and some of the choice committee appointments and bills that were being “reserved” for Harris weren’t passed her way. 

And Bock soon learned that as the only Green in the Legislature, she had no party caucus to help with such basic tasks as distributing press releases. 

“When you’re only one person, you can’t walk in and change the whole system overnight,” she said. “But you can be heard.” 

Being heard meant working with like-minded legislators on such issues as education, health care and social justice. She also found an ally in Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, part of a de facto progressive caucus, who gave Bock better committee assignments than previous Democrat Speakers might have. And even though she couldn’t offer any new bills, she was able to introduce resolutions, including one on the level of dioxin in the San Francisco Bay. 

The issue of education came up several times during her speech to the City Commons Club. Even though she went through Berkeley public schools, Bock chose to live in Piedmont when she moved back to the area because of the quality school system. 

She also addressed an initiative being promoted by the California Teachers Association for the November ballot. The measure would increase state per-pupil spending to at least the national average over five years. 

California ranks 40th in spending per pupil (ADA), according to the National Education Association. The state average was $5,627 in 1997-98, $1,011 lower than the U.S. average of $6,638 and just over half of New Jersey’s expenditure per pupil. 

The proposal, Bock said, was generated by individuals who volunteered for her campaign a year ago.