Skelton: Brown picks winners and losers in school funding

Gov. Jerry Brown promised more money for schools if voters approved his tax hike plan, Proposition 30.

But George Skelton says in his Thursday column that Brown didn’t level with voters when it came to how that money would be distributed. The governor wants to send more education funding to poor districts with larger numbers of students learning English as a second language.

During the campaign, “there wasn’t any talk about dramatically changing the way the state distributes school aid,” Skelton writes. “Voters didn’t hear about robbing Peter in the suburbs to pay Paul in the city.”

Assembly Education Committee Chairwoman Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo), a former school board member in the San Francisco Bay Area, said she believes “parents who voted for Prop. 30 were expecting money to be restored equitably with everyone brought up to the same level.”

Brown keeps saying no school will receive less money under his plan. But Skelton notes that some schools will be bigger winners than others.

All of Skelton’s columns are here.

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