Christian right targets school boards // Conservative
agenda part of local races
DATE 10/25/92
NEWSPAPER THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SECTION NEWS
EDITION MORNING
PAGE A01
STORY LENGTH 75 INCHES
HEADLINE Christian right targets school boards // Conservative
agenda part of local races
BYLINE/CREDIT Dan Froomkin:The Orange County Register
SUBJECT TERMS OC:ELECTIONS:SCHOOLS:OFFICIALS:CANDIDATES:RELIGION:POLITI
CS
KEYWORD-HIT.
The Christian right is marching on a school board near you.
From Anaheim to San Juan Capistrano, about two dozen candidates
for school board are running on similar, very conservative
platforms.
The candidates, most new to politics, by and large want students
in public school to be taught that abortion is wrong and that
creationism is as valid a scientific theory as evolution.
They support government vouchers for private school and the
infusion of what they call "traditional values" into public school.
And they oppose spending for anything but the basics _ which don't
include bilingual education and social programs.
Running in large enough numbers in some districts to sway or
even take control from more moderate members, they are quietly
vowing to change the face of public education.
While the media and traditional interest groups concentrate more
on national and statewide races, these candidates are hoping that
Nov. 3 brings a commanding shift to the right in the most local of
elected bodies.
And their sudden appearance in races _ last year, only three
people with similar views ran for school boards countywide _ is
turning some non-partisan candidate forums into debates on the
origin of life, and how it should be taught in public school.
In other cases, the conservative Christian candidates are not
saying much in public about the more controversial changes they
support, leading some opponents to cry foul over hidden agendas.
At the forefront of the effort are three powerful men in the
conservative Christian political movement in California and the
nation:
Robert Simonds, leader of the Santa-Ana based Citizens for
Excellence in Education.
The Rev. Lou Sheldon, leader of the Anaheim-based Traditional
Values Coalition.
Howard Ahmanson Jr., a wealthy Corona del Mar businessman who has
donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the most conservative
causes in California.
While all three men are based in Orange County, they never
before have turned their sights to local school boards.
But this year they have, in part because of the case of a
Capistrano Valley High School teacher who lost his court battle to
teach that evolution is not a valid scientific theory, and also as
part of a wide-ranging attempt by conservative Christians to
strengthen their political influence.
Simonds says his big-budget group's 1,200 chapters have
encouraged more than 3,000 conservative Christian candidates to run
for and win seats on school boards around the country in the past
several years.
"Surprisingly, we just never had a big battle in Orange County,"
Simonds said last week.
But now Orange County is a Simonds target _ particularly the
Capistrano district. He calls the district's fight against the
anti-evolution high school teacher "vicious," and considers the
district one he most wants to see taken over by his supporters.
Although he won't explain his role in their campaigns, Simonds
expressed delight that four Capistrano candidates _ enough to form
a majority _ are running on platforms that call for the teaching of
creationism alongside evolution in science class.
Simonds, 66, a former math teacher at Orange Coast College in
Costa Mesa, said these are his goals:
"To return academic excellence to our public schools and to
bring back moral sanity in place of the terrible current situation
of occultism in the classroom, human sexuality to the extreme _
forcing girls to practice putting condoms on bananas the boys hold
_ and those kinds of immoral, inappropriate activities we think
should be taken out of the public schools.
"We're never going to stop until it's done," Simonds added.
"It's just a matter of time. It's a crusade."
Simonds gladly admits that he plays hardball to get like-minded
people into local government _ sometimes even advising them not to
reveal their agendas.
"There's two ways you can go," Simonds said he tells candidates.
"One, you can run right up front as a Christian. And the other is
run as a parent, but don't let your views as a Christian, your
position as a Christian, be a part of your candidacy, because
there's too many anti-Christians who would like to stop them."
Sheldon's organization says it, too, is providing conservative
school-board candidates with encouragement, volunteers and support.
And Ahmanson, personally and through a company he owns, has
donated $20,000 to the Pro-Life Political Action Committee of
Orange County, a group that says it has recently printed 100,000
fliers listing a slate of candidates who oppose abortion.
Distributed by mail and in church parking lots, the fliers list,
among other local candidates, 23 would-be school board members who
"uphold strong traditional values."
Asked how many Orange County candidates his group backs, Simonds
refused to be specific.
"We don't want them on any list," he said. "It's not that we're
trying to be secretive at all, it's: `Why put them through the
pressures and the persecutions that come from the National
Education Association and the American Civil Liberties Union and so
forth?' "
It is in the Capistrano district that battle lines are drawn
most clearly. The third-largest school district in Orange County,
it serves about 30,000 students in the county's southernmost
communities.
Four seats are open on the seven-member board. Candidates
endorsed by the local Pro-Life PAC are J. Michael Sedillo, Don
Richardson, Steve Caulkins and Dustin Etheredge. Each has at least
one opponent.
All four candidates said they believe in creationism and want it
taught alongside evolution in science class. That would be a clear
break from the district's current policy, which is to follow the
official state science framework. That document says evolution is
"the unifying theory of biology," and that the proper place for
discussion of creationism is in social-science classes.
The four candidates also share support for school vouchers,
limits on sex education, and a program of wide-ranging fiscal
conservatism.
The contrasts could hardly be more clear than in the race for
Seat 5, where Etheredge, 23, is running against Sheila Benecke, 51,
a long-time Capistrano district volunteer, president of the Orange
County PTA, and an outspoken critic of school-budget cutters and
the school-voucher initiative scheduled for 1994.
At a recent forum, Etheredge called the more traditional
candidates tools of Planned Parenthood, the California Teachers
Association, the PTA and Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.
He relished hints from opponents that he is a divisive force.
"I'm that guy!" he told the audience. "I'm a conservative all
the way across the board."
Etheredge said it would be wrong to consider him an extreme
Christian. "I don't want to throw the Bible back in the classroom,"
he said.
He said his campaign is mostly about returning to the basics,
cutting administrative costs and freeing up the board from state
and federal control.
But Benecke said she doesn't think Etheredge _ or his three
fellow candidates _ are being upfront.
"They come from the pro-voucher organization and the religious
right," she said. "The agendas that these organizations have, I
feel, are not conducive to good public-school systems and do not
represent the philosophy or wishes of the public in general."
Benecke, running largely on her record, said she thinks the
conservative-Christian candidates would bring in their own
employees and a whole "menu of special-interest goals."
Simonds said he thinks the first task of a
conservative-Christian-dominated school board should be to fire
Capistrano Superintendent James Fleming, whom he branded an
"extreme left-wing anti-Christian" for his role in defeating the
lawsuit filed by John Peloza, the creationist schoolteacher.
Fleming, who said he is not anti-Christian, said his role as
superintendent prevents him from weighing into the battle.
But, he said, "As long as the views of the candidates are known
and put forth straightforwardly, then the people who are elected
will be representative of the community.
"If the ultra-conservative candidates represent the views of the
mainstream parents, then so be it."
While more low-key, campaigns in some other school districts
have also attracted candidates with views that might clash with
those of existing board members.
Kenneth Fisher, a candidate for the Anaheim Union High School
District, said a top priority would be to implement a dress code
banning "five-color hairdos, short shorts or see-through blouses."
Lou Lopez, the other candidate for the Anaheim Union district
endorsed by the Pro-Life PAC, believes students should be taught
that abortion is wrong, "that it's a child, and that they should
not terminate a pregnancy."
In elementary-district races, anti-abortion candidates said
their politics are not as relevant.
For instance, Janel Hangartner, a candidate in the Magnolia
School District, said her main concerns are keeping class sizes
small and providing students with a clean, safe environment. She
called herself "definitely" a member of the Christian right, but
said she doesn't think that makes much difference at the elementary
level.
Steve Sheldon, political director of his father Lou's
organization, said there is another advantage in getting
like-minded people on school boards, beyond what changes they can
make in the schools.
"Everybody knows school boards and city councils are areas that
are a training ground for higher office," Sheldon said.
"It's exciting that more people are getting involved."
CHART - LIST: School-board hopefuls backed by Pro-Life PAC // The
Pro-Life Political Action Committee of Orange County has endorsed 23
candidates in 10 school districts. All the candidates are listed,
with the PAC-endorsed candidate in bold type. (NOTE: IN THIS LIST
THEY ARE FOLLOWED BY * INSTEAD) An (i) indicates an incumbent.
Officials of the PAC said endorsement means the candidates expressed
opposition to abortion and support of "strong traditional family
values" in response to a questionnaire. The PAC did not endorse
candidates in the seven other districts holding elections Nov. 3.
CAPISTRANO UNIFIED (4 seats) Area 1: Peter J. Espinosa, E.G.
Kopp (i), J. Michael Sedillo * Area 2: Marlene M. Draper (i), Don
Richardson * Area 3: Steve Caulkins * , Mildred Daley Pagelow, A.
Edward Westberg (i) Area 5: Sheila Benecke, Dustin Etheredge *
PLACENTIA-YORBA LINDA UNIFIED (3 seats) Jerry Brakebill,
William Lee Crow * , Roger J. Kavigan, Judy Miner (i), Henry D.
Montelongo, Craig T. Olson * , Constance Underhill (i), Jesse A.
Valdez * , Juliet H. Zaidi
SADDLEBACK VALLEY UNIFIED (3 seats) Marcia Birch (i), John
Chihorek, Jolyon Druce, Norma Graves, Debbie Hughes * , Gardner Hussey,
Karen Irvine, Ragu Mathur (i) *, Tim Stone, Frank Ury *
TUSTIN UNIFIED (3 seats) Sally Burrage * , Gary L. Corlett, Irene J.
Dardashti, Douglass S. Davert * , Todd M. Ferguson, Merlin Henry (i),
Carol McCauley, Mark Sheridan //
ANAHEIM UNION HIGH SCHOOL (2 seats) Hersh Cherson, Kenneth
Fisher * , Charles Hicks Jr., Eric A. Lacayo, Lou Lopez, Richard Lutz
(i), Andrea Manes Naylor, Robert Stewart, La France Terrell
HUNTINGTON BEACH UNION HIGH SCHOOL (2 seats) Full term: James
Ball * , Bonnie J. Bruce, Leon McKinney, Michael H. Simons (i)
Short term: Dirk Voss * , Charles Wilkins
CYPRESS (2 seats) Steve Blount * , Donna Erickson (i) * ,
Donna L. McDougall (i)
FULLERTON ELEMENTARY (2 seats) Karen M.B. Chavez * , Rosamaria
Gomez-Amaro, Jay Gray *
MAGNOLIA SCHOOL (2 seats) Barbara J. Clendineng (i) * , Ruth W.
Good (i), Janel Hangartner * , Steve Staveley
OCEAN VIEW (2 seats) Ian C. Harrison, Roger Harvey * , Carolyn
Hunt, Charles Osterlund, Nancy Stuever