Kenneth L Peters

In the first showdown of the new legislative session, the Democratic-controlled Senate on Friday sent Gov. George Deukmejian a mixed response to his appeals for cooperation: It confirmed one of his appointees to the state Board of Education and rejected another. "It may be politics as usual," said Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno. The Senate reversed its initial rejection last Sept. 1 of former Beverly Hills Unified School Supt. Kenneth L.

In the first showdown of the new legislative session, the Democratic-controlled Senate on Friday sent Gov. George Deukmejian a mixed response to his appeals for cooperation: It confirmed one of his appointees to the state Board of Education and rejected another. "It may be politics as usual," said Senate Republican Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno. The Senate reversed its initial rejection last Sept. 1 of former Beverly Hills Unified School Supt. Kenneth L.

A badly divided State Board of Education voted Friday to postpone action on a "memo of understanding" that would increase significantly the board's authority over educational policy in the state's elementary and secondary schools. After some behind-the-scenes lobbying by Gov. Pete Wilson's office, the board voted 6 to 5 to delay a vote on the agreement until next month.

At an acrimonious meeting of the State Board of Education on Friday, an arch-critic of state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig was elected board president, assuring another year of battling between the panel and Honig. Businessman Joseph Stein of Indian Wells will replace retired UCLA professor Joseph D. Carrabino, whose running feud with Honig has dominated most board meetings for the past two years.

A model "school accountability report card" that will give parents valuable information about the performance of each of California's 7,100 public schools was approved Thursday by a key committee of the state Board of Education. The report card requirement was a little-noticed feature of Proposition 98, the measure approved by voters last November that guarantees 40% of state general fund revenues for public schools and community colleges. The report would pull together in a single document such information as test scores, dropout rates, class size, expenditures per pupil and the number of teachers at each school who do not hold credentials in the subject they are teaching.

The continuing political feud between Gov. George Deukmejian and state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig escalated last week when the State Board of Education, made up entirely of appointees by the governor, moved to strip Honig of his control over the Department of Education's $110-million budget. The 10-member board took the first steps Friday to increase its staff and hire its own lawyer, in an effort to keep a closer eye on Honig and his staff.

Opening a new front in the fight to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District, a state Board of Education committee Thursday recommended spending $250,000 to develop models for school district reorganizations throughout the state. Advocates of dividing the Los Angeles district hope that by approaching the issue statewide, they can win support from legislators who must approve the funding and are wary of focusing only on Los Angeles schools.

Efforts by Los Angeles school board members to become a full-time body with annual salaries of about $55,000 hit a snag Thursday when a committee of the State Board of Education told two Los Angeles board members to take the issue up with the Legislature. The two board members who came to Sacramento to plead the case--Warren Furutani and Roberta Weintraub--said the board might approach the Legislature, but probably not for two years.

Both sides in a pitched battle over splitting the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District expressed a mixture of disappointment and hope over a State Board of Education vote that fell short of resolving the matter. The 11-member state board, which needed six votes to make a decision, lined up 5-3 against the East Peninsula Education Council's effort to let voters decide whether to form a new district. Two seats on the state panel are vacant and David T.

A Newport Beach company that invests money for an estimated 40,000 California educators is under investigation by the state Department of Corporations, which is looking into allegations that investors were shortchanged in real estate deals. In a recent prospectus, Teachers Management & Investment Corp. disclosed that the state agency is investigating its real estate fees, travel expenses, advertising and a series of property transactions involving a single unidentified piece of land.

A marathon session of the Legislature stumbled to a frenetic finish shortly before sunrise Thursday with lawmakers killing a bill to expand the death penalty and refusing to confirm four appointees of Gov. George Deukmejian to important state posts.