Budget overshadows push for local control over schools
Educators like Brown's focus, but worry about the money
Gov. Jerry Brown’s education agenda is framed by an underlying commitment to hand off more control to local school officials, whether it’s over budgets or tests.
“To me, we should set broad goals and have a good accountability system, leaving the real work to those closest to the students,” Brown told Californians in his State of the State address last month.
To that end, Brown has laid down a number of guiding principles in his budget that, coupled with policy proposals, have encouraged school officials eager to cut many of Sacramento’s strings.
However, scattered acclaim over Brown’s policy directions is being muffled by growing alarm over the central element of his proposed 2012-13 budget: relying on voters to approve a November tax increase initiative to provide money to schools. Rejection would result in an