The Los Angeles Times wants a change to California's Constitution, which, through its division of educational powers?an elected superintendent of public instruction, and an appointed secretary of education and Board of Education?has contributed to the bureaucratic clog that not infrequently stops up progress on K-12 issues in the Golden State. ?Ideally,? the editors write, ?[Governor Jerry] Brown would be able to do away with that post [the secretary of education] and the appointed Board of Education, bring the Education Department under his wing and streamline the bulky and often-contradictory administration of the public schools.? The Times gives as an example of such contradictory administration the 2008 situation in which then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger pushed the Board of Education to require that all eighth graders in California take algebra. The superintendent at the time, Jack O'Connell, didn't like the requirement, so he sued the Board (and eventually won). In the meantime, principals and teachers watched bemusedly, not really sure whether they had to teach algebra or not.
?Liam Julian, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow