The main candidates to replace Wilson uniformly opposed Proposition 227, including the Republican nominee, Dan Lungren, who says he opposes Proposition 227 because it precludes local control in education.
"So long as you have statewide standards, local decision-making which will adapt to the particular students that you have is the best direction we can take to successfully educate our children," he said.
Yet he complimented Ron Unz, the millionaire Silicon Valley software entrepreneur who authored Proposition 227, for bringing the issue to the ballot.
"Ron Unz has done us a great service," staid Lungren, who supported the anti-affirmative action Proposition 209, which California voters approved last fall.
Lungren believes an overhaul of California's public school system would give every student a chance to succeed, regardless of ethnicity. Meanwhile, he says he wants to put a greater emphasis on utilizing the state's 107 community colleges, particularly for students whose elementary and secondary education were substandard.
Lieutenant Governor Gray Davis -- who beat out Congresswoman Jane Harman and former Northwest Airlines chairman Al Checchi for the Democratic party nomination for governor -- has complained that Proposition 227 is "a one-size-fits-all solution." And while he prefers to let parents decide if their children are taught bilingually or through English immersion, he believes that a school should take no longer than three years to move a student into English-language instruction -- and, he would reward schools that could make the change in one or two years.
Regarding diversity in education, Davis proposes admitting the top ten students from every California high school to the University of California.
"If they're in the top ten, they're obviously qualified kids," he said.
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