Education and political advocacy shared the spotlight Monday at the Eugene Hilton, where six of Oregon’s gubernatorial candidates spent a half day talking up plans to promote education in the state.
The forum, co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Lane County, the City Club of Eugene and the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University, drew a crowd of 250, according to City Club President Don Kahle. One Republican and one Democratic gubernatorial candidate will be chosen by voters in the May 21 primary.
Candidates took turns answering how they thought education in Oregon would be affected by their hypothetical first term as governor. The participants often overlapped in their responses and occasionally showed a sense of humor.
“All of us are lawyers,” Democrat Bev Stein quipped. “Your next governor will be a lawyer.”
Democrat Jim Hill, the first to respond to the education question, said he plans to implement partnerships to keep higher education strong. He emphasized the relationship Oregon State University has with Hewlett-Packard and attributed Sony Disc Manufacturing’s location in Springfield to the presence of the University of Oregon.

“The future of our universities lies in the effective marriage of economics and higher learning,” Hill said.
Hill, the former state treasurer, was the only candidate to laud the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System, a comprehensive retirement system that serves more than 160,000 Oregon workers. He also stressed diversifying Oregon’s economy and said his “proven track record” at managing the state’s portfolio as treasurer from 1992 to 2000 made him an ideal candidate for governor.
Republican Ron Saxton then took the stage, and drew on his experience as chairman of the Portland Public School Board to explain what he would do for education over the coming years if elected.
“Education is critical — it’s the most important thing we do for our economy, it’s the most important thing we do for our children,” Saxton said.
He was quick to vilify the PERS system, which he said was responsible for taking money away from class funding.
“We will address PERS. We will reform it,” he said.
Saxton emphasized that the state’s economy must be rebuilt to adequately fund education and opposed raising taxes to pay for education in Oregon.

“We’re not going to have a strong education system unless we have a strong economy,” he said.
Republican Jack Roberts said he planned on building bipartisan support for an education plan if elected, and he said education in Oregon needed smarter spending habits, not more money.
“We can throw money at problems forever and never solve them,” said Roberts, who is serving his second term as state labor commissioner.
Roberts, like Saxton, said that too much money was being used to pay for teacher payroll and benefits.
“We need to redesign to way we pay for personnel, which is 80 percent of the cost,” he said.
Democrat Bev Stein chastised her fellow participants for lofty visions of reform over the next four years.
“You can’t just focus on vision,” she said. “You must counterpoise that with reality.”
She said her efforts to build a grass-roots campaign demonstrated how firmly she was grounded in the community. She pitched an education plan to recruit more teachers, reduce high school dropout rates and keep talented faculty at universities by paying them more.
Stein, the former chairwoman of Multnomah County’s Board of Commissioners, also praised the University of Oregon’s approach to overcrowding, a plan that discounts tuition rates for students enrolling in early morning and late-night classes.
Republican Kevin Mannix, a former Oregon legislator, said he planned to stay in close contact with schools if elected and was the only candidate to specifically commit to increasing funding for higher education. Mannix said he would increase higher education funding by $350 million over the next four years.
Democrat Ted Kulongoski, the last to answer, said he planned to eliminate the state board of higher education and form one board responsible for education from kindergarten to the university level. At the same time, Kulongoski, the former Oregon Attorney General, said he wanted to restore more local control to education and work closely with families, churches and schools.
Candidates then answered a series of questions from attendees and took political potshots at each other on issues such as PERS and state funding for prisons before concluding the event at 2 p.m. in a series of handshakes and applause.
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