JERRY BROWN
School Funding
Will make funding of public schools and colleges a top priority.
Supports Prop. 98, the state’s minimum school funding law, as a floor and not a ceiling.
Education Reform
Believes education reform must be done with collaboration among educators, administrators and parents deciding how best to meet the needs for students in each neighborhood school.
Believes California needs a major overhaul of many components of the postsecondary system and the establishment of a representative group to create a new state Master Plan.
Opposes using punitive and wholesale takeover of troubled schools.
Supports using proven, meaningful reforms to help struggling schools, not simplistic formulas such as in No Child Left Behind.
Secure Retirement
Opposes converting CalSTRS and CalPERS retirement systems from secure defined-benefit plans to risky 401(k) contribution plans.
Employee Rights
As governor, signed the first collective bargaining bill in California’s history, allowing teachers to be full partners in educating children and in the governing process.
Believes teachers’ pay and working conditions are a matter of collective bargaining.
Opposes “paycheck deception” initiative.
Supports workers’ right to organize and participate in the political process.
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MEG WHITMAN
School Funding
Wants to immediately cut $15 billion from the state budget, which could mean taking another $7 billion from our schools and colleges, increasing class sizes by 33 percent, and laying off 100,000 teachers.
Education Reform
Supports merit pay for teachers using standardized test scores.
Wants to grade all public schools A to F based on standardized test scores.
Rather than helping to improve neighborhood public schools, supports mandatory conversion of all struggling schools to charter schools.
Wants to remove the state’s cap on charter schools.
Secure Retirement
Supports a two-tier retirement system, converting the secure definedbenefit pension plans to 401(k)s for all new public employees.
Supports increasing minimum retirement age from 55 to 65 for most public employees.
Employee Rights
Supports reducing public employee workforce by 40,000.
Supports “paycheck deception” proposals that would silence the voices of workers and limit union participation in the political process.
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