Fighting uphill battle in 46th

POLITICS: Despite the odds against her, teacher Gloria Matta Tuchman has a vision to improve her district.

Like many kindergarten teachers, Gloria Matta Tuchman spends Friday afternoons reading to her class, then quizzing them to make sure the students have understood the story. They sit at her feet, uniformed and cross-legged, in rapt attention.

The serene scene and her modest goal is such a contrast to her quest outside the classroom: Defeat one of the best-known members of Congress and head to Washington, D.C., where she would try to influence politicians instead of 5- and 6-year-olds.

Tuchman is the Republican nominee in the 46th Congressional District, which consists of Santa Ana, Anaheim and Garden Grove. Her chief opponent: two-term incumbent Democrat Loretta Sanchez.

In here, I am the teacher, not the politician,” Tuchman, 58, said inside her classroom at Taft Elementary School in Santa Ana one recent afternoon.

But outside the classroom, politics and education are intertwined for her.

In 1998, she made an unsuccessful bid to be elected state superintendent of schools. That same year, she co-authored the victorious Proposition 227, which limited how long children who did not speak English could spend in a bilingual classroom.

People ask me if I get tired of hearing about the challenge, but that spurs me on even more,” Tuchman said. I will carry forth something we all believe in — the ability to achieve the American dream through education.”

A child of bilingual parents growing up in Texas and Arizona, Tuchman spoke only English at home. She raised her two children the same.

Our parents didn’t want us to be behind in school and knew that we could learn our other language later on,” she said, pointing to time she spent in Mexico learning Spanish as an example of successful immersion.

Tuchman went to college at Arizona State University and after graduation began teaching Head Start.

I knew education was the way to the American dream and I wanted everyone to be able to achieve that,” Tuchman said. I always knew I wanted to be a teacher.”

She and her husband landed jobs in the Santa Ana Unified School District and settled in Orange County. They had two sons, both of whom attended public schools.

As an extension of her involvement as a parent and in the classroom, Tuchman ran successfully for a seat on the Tustin school board in 1985 and served nine years.

In 1998, she ran for California’s schools chief post in an effort to take her back-to-basics” approach to education to the state level. In a race against an incumbent whom most assumed she had no chance to beat, Tuchman got 47 percent of the vote. She received 55 percent in the congressional district she is now running in.

That same year, she championed Prop. 227, which she wrote with Palo Alto entrepreneur Ron Unz. The measure passed with 61 percent approval. In Orange County it passed with more than 70 percent.

Her support of English immersion and school vouchers, however, has meant the loss of support from other teachers. Sometimes it meant more.

I even received death threats during 227,” she said. My family worried constantly, but I knew I had to give the message to the people.”

In her own classroom, where every child is a native-Spanish speaker, English is the primary language of teaching. Students learn their colors in English, and often whisper to each other in Spanish. Tuchman speaks to them in Spanish only when absolutely necessary.

It was her work on Prop. 227 and her bid for the statewide office that pushed Tuchman onto the radar of powerful Republicans.

The party recruited her to run for Congress even though she lives a few miles outside the 46th Congressional District in north Tustin and has no plans to move.

Besides her name recognition, her Hispanic background is an added bonus in a district that is at least 40 percent Hispanic, said Marit Babin, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

She is very enthusiastic and represents the kind of candidate that should be in Congress,” said Jon Fleischman, executive director of the state GOP. She is a woman whose entire passion is for children to receive the best education.”

It always difficult to challenge a highly funded incumbent like Sanchez, but the obvious differences between the two will help Tuchman reach voters, Fleischman said.

Issues

Tuchman says her Roman Catholicism also shapes her politics, such as her opposition to abortion, including in cases of rape and incest, she said.

I have a friend whose mother was raped, and he reminds me that he would not be here if abortion were legal at the time,” she said.

Though all of her positions on major issues line up with the Republican party, Tuchman said she is always willing to listen to other’s ideas.

I am always open to see what makes sense regardless of the party politics,” she said. Republicans make sense — I can’t reason why people should not be able to spend their own money for Social Security.”

Siding with her party but parting with most of her fellow teachers, Tuchman favors school vouchers and says that competing for students would force schools to improve.

If public schools are doing their jobs, nobody will leave,” she says.

Democrats want people to be comfortable in poverty. We have to use education to give all students the same opportunities, and competition can help that.”

Not surprisingly, the state’s teachers union endorsed Sanchez.

Taft Elementary principal Bill Hart opposes school vouchers, but is confident that Tuchman would represent north Orange County well in Congress.

She puts her actions with her heart,” Hart said. When she finds something that she thinks is right and needs to happen, then look out because she will make sure that it will happen.”

Tuchman says politics and teaching are similar professions.

You are selling your ideas and trying to get people excited about the same things you are excited about. I have to think about what I can do to get (the students) enthused about reading and I have to think about what I can do to get voters excited about politics and my ideas.”

heavily outspent

As of the end July, Tuchman had raised just over $150,000, compared with Sanchez’s $1.5 million. As of Sept. 30, Tuchman had $49,000 left in her treasury; Sanchez had $1.4 million.

While Sanchez is pouring money into cable television ads, most of Tuchman’s money is going toward mailers and slick fliers that outline her positions.

The disparity in funds illustrates the predictable outcome, said Chapman University political-science professor Fred Smoller.

She is a good candidate who has no chance,” he said. She has great potential for a different race or a different time. She looks like a keeper for the party. (But) the only person who would have a chance at beating Sanchez is Ronald Reagan.”

Despite the campaign, Tuchman still teaches at least part of the week.

I have to make sure my kids are still learning,” she said. For now, that is still my job.”

Often, Tuchman leaves her classroom to attend a community meeting or a campaign event. She returns home shortly before midnight and wakes up to teach again the next morning.

Weekends are spent campaigning door to door.

As she turned the corner one day in a Garden Grove neighborhood, she came to an intersection she didn’t know existed — the junction of Clinton and Gloria streets.

It’s an omen! I’m going to win,” she shouted. Clinton is coming out and Gloria is coming in!”



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