As expected, the Assembly passed its version of Race to the Top legislation Thursday, largely along partisan lines, 47-25. Even before the vote, Gov. Schwarzenegger  vowed to veto the bill, saying, “It’s not a race to mediocrity, it’s a race to the top. We want to make sure we get a good bill out there.”

So what would it take to get a bill that Democrats and Schwarzenegger could live with? Probably not all that much: some word changes to Assemblywoman Julia Brownley’s ABX5-8 blended with some pieces of Sen. Gloria Romero’s SBX5-1. Specifically:

Charters: ABX5-8 got too cute in eliminating the annual cap of 100 charter schools per year. It includes gratuitous restrictions under the guise of accountability. So eliminate the language that could hinder the growth of high-performance charters and give charter leaders a say in drawing up new rules for auditing charters’ finances.

Choice: Both Romero’s and Brownley’s bills would require districts with the worst 5 percent of low-achieving schools to take tough medicine: replace the staff, reopen as a charter, or adopt other major changes. That’s good, and Romero would then extend the turnaround option to other low-performing schools when 50 percent of parents petition to demand change. Brownley should have listened to civil rights advocates and parents of students trapped in bad schools. Instead, she has angered them by proposing a weak alternative to Romero: a hearing before the school board but no assurance that anything would be done.

SBX5-1 would also give students in low-achieving schools the right to attend any school where there’s space. That open-ended transfer right goes too far in forcing all districts to accept interdistrict transfers. But there should be room for compromise.

Common core: California has joined 48 states in pledging to adopt common standards and possibly assessments, too.  That’s good. But there should be a process that lets the public weigh in on standards changes. The Brownley bill would give the superintendent of public instruction too much authority to decide on his own. I’ll be writing more about this next week.

Alternative certification: SBX5-1 would create more paths for mid-career professionals to teach science and math. Take this approach.

A stalemate might secretly please those Democrats who don’t want to ruffle the teachers union on the issue of performance-based pay and  Republicans who view Race to the Top as a power grab by the Obama administration. But a veto also would kill a faltering state application for the $4.35 billion program and squelch some important reforms in  ABX5-8.

With some give and take, in the spirit of the season, the Senate and Assembly could be sharing egg nog this time next week.