The L.A. Times has the story. Brown has gotten rid of the charter school proponents on the Board of Education and replaced them with some well-respected educators and a CTA lobbyist.
Although two of Brown’s appointees – a CTA lobbyist and a tribal official – are viewed by some as obvious political payback to campaign loyalists, most of the new board members are widely regarded.
Carl Cohn led the Long Beach Unified School District to national acclaim during his decade-long tenure as superintendent there. Michael Kirst is seen as a powerful choice because of his deep understanding of the state’s kindergarten-through-higher education needs and the state’s political complexities. Trish Williams won respect from both sides of the political aisle while serving as the executive director of EdSource, a respected nonpartisan clearinghouse for education data. Bill Honig, whose appointment sparked controversy because the former state schools chief was convicted of conflict-of-interest charges 18 years ago, is regarded as an advocate for reading education.
Williamson M. Evers, a research fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, called them “strong appointments” and urged patience.
The board could have a greater voice in the Brown administration because Brown has decided to eliminate the position of education secretary as a budget-cutting measure.
Brown’s appointment of seven new board members at once effectively eliminated several members who were viewed as strong voices for reform, including Ted Mitchell, the president of NewSchools Venture Fund; Johnathan Williams, founder of the Accelerated School, a charter organization in South-Central Los Angeles; Alan Arkatov, president of Changing.edu; and Ben Austin, chief executive of Parent Revolution.
Austin is a lifelong Democratic stalwart who worked in the Clinton White House. He was appointed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom he actively campaigned against, and fired by Brown, whom he voted for.
“I got yanked and replaced on his first full day in office by literally the lobbyist for his biggest campaign contributor,” he said. “At the end of the day, what yesterday proved was an intellectually honest kids-first agenda is probably one of the most radical political agendas in the state of California.”
Sucks to be Austin. :-\
The unions are of course happy with this move. And by eliminating the education secretary (we had one?!?), does that give new Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson more control over the schools?
And another result of these new appointments seems to be this.
The state board took on a more prominent role in the reform movement when the Obama administration began pushing its education agenda in 2009, using the Race to the Top competition as leverage. That competition for billions of federal dollars, at a time when many states were facing budget deficits, prodded California and other states to implement legislative changes aligned with the reforms.
California failed to qualify for the money, but one legacy of its effort is the “parent trigger,” a school-turnaround law used for the first time in December by parents in Compton when they petitioned to convert an elementary school into a charter.
The state board is scheduled to finalize the regulations for the law on Friday, but the vote is expected to be delayed.
So anyone know why those Compton parents petitioned for the change in the first place? My theory may be overly harsh on them, so I’d like to hear what others have to say before opening my mouth. But aside from that, if you’re a proponent of democracy, shouldn’t they deserve what they asked for?
BTW, as usual, looks like the comments section of that Times article has brought the Tea Partiers out of the woodwork to rail against Brown’s move. 🙂
And I’m sure there’ll be lots of disagreements over the methodology and ranking system, but here’s Newsweek’s list of America’s top high schools (all, not just public ones). Sigh… my high school used to be #15 in the entire country, now we’ve fallen all the way down to #181. 🙁
is that an outside organization was looking for a first school to target under this law, and chose the Compton school. They went around quietly gathering signatures from parents until they had enough.
The school board had no idea this was in process, and the parents signing the petition had no idea that substantial reforms had recently been instituted, and that scores, while still very low, were showing substantial increases.
Thus, it was not at all a parents-grassroots revolt. It was an example of a failure to communicate and an outside org looking for a sandbox.