Jerry Brown for governor: State’s former executive has the experience, passion for education Californians need

Selecting California’s next governor is perhaps the most important task voters face Tuesday. Thankfully, the choice is clear for University of California students, who should look no further than Democratic candidate Jerry Brown.

Simply put, Brown has a long, trackable history of prioritizing public education ““ something this state has failed to do, particularly over the past four years.

The UC’s budget more than doubled during Brown’s last tenure as governor, from 1979 to 1983, and he increased funding for critical Cal Grants by 50 percent.

Of course the state enjoyed greater economic prosperity more than 25 years ago, but Brown’s eight-page platform on education indicates that he is also cognizant of the complex issues that have thrust the UC system into a free fall.

Brown sees how we have departed from the Master Plan. His pledge to overhaul state testing and target community colleges for improvement demonstrates his ability to pinpoint two of the state’s biggest areas of concern. And his promise to improve teacher effectiveness without waging war on the profession suggests that he understands that public education isn’t a complete disaster.

We are disturbed by Republican Meg Whitman’s choice to largely ignore education issues altogether. Her three hollow paragraphs on education view it from an economic perspective and advocate simplistically for a reallocation of state spending.

The last thing we need is another economist running our state’s great civic institutions.