Education

By Sedalia L. (White) Sanders

Public education is the great equalizer

Support for Funding

As a member of Governor Wilson's Task Force on Rural Competitiveness and Chair of his Education K-12 Sub-committee, one of our primary recommendations was Class Size Reduction. The future of California success will depend on how we educate our children and provide the nescessary resources to our local school districts to continue class size reduction.

I support the "School Improvement and Accountability Act." I am supporting this measure because it has the nescessary built in safeguards.It is projected that California will need 20,000 classrooms and 544 new teachers over the next 10 years, to accommodate enrollment growth. The "School Improvement and Accountability Act" will become a very important tool for local school district and communities to meet their needs in school repairs and construction.

Teachers:

To attract and retain qualified teachers in both rural and urban areas, I am committed to working toward increasing teacher's salaries. Salaries that will be reflective of the very important work that they do. TThese proposed salary increases would be structured with built in accountability and performance standards for all public educators.

Vouchers:

I am opposed to vouchers. I am concerened that the shift in public dollars will weaken the public school system. Our public schools are where the over whelming majority of California's children will be educated. I have found no evidence, that the money shifted from public schools to private schools have improved students achievements.