News

House District 20 candidates focus on education issues
Republican Berger and Democrat Garcia differ in how to fund schools

PETER WONG
Statesman Journal

September 28, 2006

A passion for public schools motivated Rep. Vicki Berger and Connie Garcia to run in House District 20, which covers parts of Marion and Polk counties.

They have differing approaches toward how to improve schools.

Democratic challenger Garcia jumped into the race after she retired as a teacher in the Central School District.

"My eyes really opened to the problems of education because those are the last four years we have to get people ready for life," she said. "The way it is right now, it's not happening."

She said she considered doing something else after retiring two years earlier than she planned, but at the urging of friends, she decided to make her first run for public office. She was inspired in the 1960s by John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., Garcia said, "so I became an activist as much as I could be."

"We do have the power to change things," she said. "We must not waste it."

Two-term Republican Berger went to Salem schools, is the mother of three children and is the wife of an educator. Jerry Berger is a former president of Chemeketa Community College and is on the state Board of Education.

She was on the Salem-Keizer School Board for four years. But she wanted to do more at the right time. She got her chance when the District 20 seat fell open in 2002.

"I told my husband that either I'm going to run for this seat or, after saying for 30 years I was interested, kick myself for the rest of my life when the door was open and I did not walk through it," she said.

District 20 covers downtown Salem, part of South Salem, and West Salem, Monmouth and Independence in Polk County. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats, 41.2 percent to 35.6 percent. It has a growing Latino presence, and some of the newest housing in the Mid-Willamette Valley.

Berger calls herself a business-oriented, fiscally conservative Republican. But she also said she heeds the concerns of many state workers who are constituents and that on social issues, "the Republican Party has left me, but I hope it'll start coming back."

She praised much of the work of the independent Chalkboard Project. But she also said, "I think the Legislature needs to be less of a school board" and give more leeway to the state Board of Education and individual districts.

She said advances in technology will allow for alternatives to traditional public-school structures. But she said students still need to demonstrate what they have learned.

Garcia has a different approach to schools.

"Online courses are great for learning skills and growing intellectually," Garcia said. "But they do nothing for developing people skills. We need to build bridges between the schools and employers."

She also said that to implement Chalkboard Project recommendations such as reducing class sizes, it comes down to money.

"Whatever mandates you have, you have to put money into them," she said.

Garcia favors retaining excess corporate income taxes. She said the 1979 law that requires refunds known as "kickers" should be re-examined, although voters would need to approve changes.

Berger said she favors either a revamped tax system to lessen schools' dependence on state income taxes or a larger reserve fund to stabilize what schools get from the state. She said the latter is more urgent and more doable, because she doubts voters will approve a sales tax.