BEVERLY HILLS – Gov. Jerry Brown said Thursday that the school testing program he proposed overhauling in last year's gubernatorial campaign is a "good system" he will keep intact.

Brown's remarks came after a rift between the governor and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg over education policy opened Saturday, when Brown vetoed legislation by the Sacramento Democrat that would have changed how the state measures school performance.

The legislation, which would have expanded performance measures to include such factors as career readiness and graduation and promotion rates, was a priority of Steinberg's and might have been an easy fit for Brown.

The Democratic governor said in his campaign that the state's testing system was expensive and time-consuming and that "tests should not measure factoids as much as understanding."

In his campaign education plan, Brown said "state tests should be linked to college preparation and career readiness, but current tests were not designed to do this."

Speaking to reporters at the Milken Institute's State of the State Conference at the Beverly Hilton on Thursday, Brown said when asked about his previous comments that the system needs "some improvements," but he defended it overall.

"I think the API (Academic Performance Index) is a good system," he said. "That's why I vetoed Steinberg's bill, because it would have marginalized the API."

In his message vetoing Steinberg's bill, Brown suggested establishing a system of local panels to observe teachers and examine student work, among other things, a position he reiterated Thursday.

"I think we've reached a point where we have the testing assessment regimes pretty well in place," Brown said. "Now what we have to have is more on-site evaluation of teachers, following the model of accreditation."

Brown was interviewed on stage by Michael Milken, and he could hardly have found a more accommodating host. Milken at one point compared Brown's thinking to Thomas Edison's.

Brown was applauded when, talking about pension changes, the 73-year-old said, "I could actually probably say that I won't take my pension until I solve the pension problem."

Later, he said he was kidding.

"It might take me 10 or 20 years to get the job done," Brown said. "I thought it would be a good challenge, but I don't want to make that challenge without a little more deliberative thought."

Brown has said for weeks that he will propose pension changes this fall, and he said Thursday that some of them will require a constitutional amendment and a vote of the people.

He declined to discuss his plan in any detail, and it was unclear Thursday if any constitutional amendment Brown is seeking would be paired with tax increases he is expected to propose next year.

"You'll get all the details very soon," Brown told reporters.

As a candidate last year, Brown proposed spending more money on higher education and shifting more K-12 decision-making authority to local schools.

He has made little headway since taking office, however, consumed first with the state budget crisis and then with a jobs package that was largely defeated by Republicans in the Legislature.

Brown started two charter schools while mayor of Oakland, a military institute and an arts school, and he said Thursday that his vision of a successful education is one that includes both rigor and imagination, with "more kids in uniform and more kids dancing."

The conference on the economy was held as statewide unemployment hovers above 12 percent.

Reaction was mixed when the moderator of one panel, lawyer Lewis Feldman, compared the state of the economy to a flu shot administered by Conrad Murray, the doctor on trial in Michael Jackson's death.

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Call David Siders, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 321-1215. Follow him on Twitter @davidsiders.

• Read more articles by David Siders