One of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's first appointees to the state Board of Education is facing stiff resistance from organized labor because she has been the outspoken leader of a movement to give school districts more freedom to hire private firms to perform public services.

Jeannine Martineau has been a member of the Lake Elsinore Board of Education in Riverside County, and she is the past president of the California School Boards Association. She has focused on improving education for bilingual children and shrinking the achievement gap between poor kids and children of the affluent.

But Martineau is also chairwoman of the Coalition for Local Control of School Spending. The coalition is a public relations effort aimed at repealing a law passed in 2002 and signed by former Gov. Gray Davis that sought to stop school districts from contracting with private firms for bus transportation, landscaping, cafeteria meals and other services.

That measure ended a tradition of relatively free local control in school business affairs and replaced it with a regimen of state rules for districts to clear before they could contract out for services. Designed to protect public-sector jobs, the rules prevent local districts from focusing scarce resources where they are needed most: in the classroom.

The bill, SB 1419, was a major achievement of the California School Employees Association, the union representing many of the public-sector workers whose jobs might be threatened by private contracting. Now that union is leading an effort to try to block Martineau's confirmation in the state Senate.

So far, the Senate Rules Committee has approved 22 of Schwarzenegger's appointees to state jobs and commissions, and the full Senate has acted on 12 of them, confirming them all. If Martineau is blocked, she would be the first appointee of the new governor to fall by the wayside.

Barbara Howard, the union's director of governmental relations, said in a letter to the Senate that Martineau has "twisted facts and figures" in opposing SB 1419. Her advocacy on this issue "calls into question her ability to make impartial judgments," Howard wrote, and should disqualify her from a seat on the state board.

While somewhat obscure, the school employees association is a powerful force in state politics. The union represents more than 220,000 employees in local districts and runs a political fund that is among the largest in the state.

The committee has contributed more than $2.7 million to political campaigns since the start of 2001, including $300,000 to the campaign to defend Davis against last year's recall.

Almost all of the money the union donates goes to Democrats, and the Democrats who control the Legislature responded with the passage of SB 1419 in the waning days of the 2002 legislative session.

Attempts to repeal it or soften its impact have failed since then.

A recent survey of school districts turned up several examples of the hardship this law creates. Santa Ana Unified has unopened computers sitting in boxes because the staff doesn't have time to set them up and the district couldn't contract for installation with the company that sold the hardware. The tiny Reed Union Elementary District had to turn down an offer from local sports leagues to help maintain ball fields even though the district's one groundskeeper can't keep up with the work required and the district can't afford to hire another. And several school districts report that the law has blocked their attempts to contract for bus transportation.

Martineau didn't help her cause any by serving since January as a paid consultant to the public relations firm that is running the campaign to repeal SB 1419. Randle Communications paid her $2,500 a month, mostly to reimburse her for expenses she piled up traveling the state to champion the idea of local control. But that money came to Randle in part from Laidlaw Transportation, a private bus company that would like to get more of the school district business, leaving the appearance, at least, that Laidlaw was paying Martineau for her advocacy. After I inquired about the relationship, Martineau said she returned the money and will pay all of her costs out of pocket.

This was a minor blemish, however, on an otherwise impressive record of public service. Despite the union's campaign against her, Martineau has the support of the union local that represents workers in her home district.

Ironically, while a member of the board there, Martineau oversaw the creation of an in-house transportation department that took over the bus service from Laidlaw, the private contractor. In that case, she said, providing the service with public employees worked best. But she wants to preserve the right of other districts to do what they think is right for their students and local taxpayers.

That doesn't sound like twisted logic to me. More like common sense. Schwarzenegger should fight to see Martineau confirmed, if for no other reason than to show that things have changed in Sacramento, and that this union no longer can use its power to muzzle public officials who have a right to voice their opinions on important policy matters.

He planned to campaign in California later in the week.