Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita (in photo), is correct: The Kansas education commissioner oversees half of state government spending, so that person needs to be qualified. But the Legislature should avoid setting into law what those qualifications must be, as Ward supports doing. House Bill 2711 would require that the commissioner be either a licensed teacher or school administrator, or have significant training or experience in education. Those qualifications are certainly preferable, and what you would expect in most commissioners. But couldn’t a good commissioner also come from the corporate world — someone who is a great manager and leader who has extensive executive experience?
The problem with the State Board of Education’s hiring of current Education Commissioner Bob Corkins is that he didn’t have any of these qualifications: He had no education experience and no managerial experience of any significance.
Perhaps the better policy change would be to elevate the education commissioner to a Cabinet position, appointed by the governor. That way the governor would be more personally responsible for the quality of Kansas schools and the quality of the commissioner.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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10 Comments
Really? Shouldn’t the Kansas education commissioner be required to wear a halo? Maybe a notarized license from God? Certainly affidavits from religious zealots stating his/her adherence to the tried and true principles of Intelligent Design. What else is necessary?
Well, somebody needs to set down what the job qualifications are; otherwise some dolt with friends in high places will end up with the job!
You have a law licence to be a judge.
In Kansas, especially in low population areas, they used to use lay judges – judges who did not have legal degrees. I believe they called them magistrates. I don’t know if they still use these folks. They did 20 years ago.
Plumbers have to be licensed. Beauticians must be licensed. Electricians must be licensed. The idea being that licensing helps establish some base line of competency.
As such, the idea of making the person who is (nominally) in charge of the state’s entire future–education of the kids– should be able to prove some type of competency.
But…again, the other side is the cautionary part about legislating job descriptions. I still think the best idea is either cabinet level appointment or, like in some states, an actual elected position. Anything would be better than the appointment of an incompetent by a board of incompetents.
The Los Angeles School District is larger than all of Kansas’s combined districts. Its superintendent is Roy Romer. Mr. Romer has no education credentials. He’s a former Colorado governor and Democratic National Committee chair.
Public schools were not created by graduates of ed schools, they were created by industrialist capitalists who wanted a well-regimented workforce whose individual productivity was low, but whose mass-aggregate production was large, enabling the capitalists to siphon part of each worker’s production, and in aggregate, siphon a lot, and in the process become wealthy.
Public schools were designed to imitate factories. This is why teachers recognized they were factory workers, and unionized. One of the first teachers unions, for example, was designed under the guidance of the meatpackers union in Chicago.
The system recruits mostly women, who have major household management duties, and so cannot commit themselves fully to their teaching careers. It recruits men who don’t have the drive to work in other fields. It recruits some people who have a true gift for teaching, but they are put into a factory system, and can’t do their best work.
Schools are not failing because their workers don’t know what to do, but because they’re following an obsolete factory model in an economy in which we no longer have more than half the population working in factories. Public education was created to serve a 19th century to mid-20th century economy. Our economy has fundamentally changed. So the education of children must be fundamentally transformed. People who were recruited and trained in the industrial model of education don’t understand this.
Let me put it this way: public schools are doing a great job. Unfortunately, this job has become obsolete. When public education was designed more than a century ago, it was beautifully suited to the then-existent industrial economy in which most workers were supposed to perform repetitive routines. The problem is that the mass-education system is still trying to achieve the goals set for a now-disappearing economy.
Put another way, the industrial economy is being moved to Asia, which means that the education system that was developed here is appropriate to use there. But it can no longer work here.
Yes, Kansas still has many magistrate judges and they don’t just cover small counties. They handle all the same cases except divorce, felony, and chapter 61 civil cases. And no they don’t have to have a law degree. They do have to pass a test and get certified with the Supreme Court within 18 months of appointment.
My suggestion is replace the Kansas Board of Education with the 40 member Kansas Senate. This would give our State Senators a special responsibility and encourage Kansas voters to take an especially hard look at each senate candidate.
Then the Kansas Senate could select the State Education Commissioner.
Letting the Governor and/or the voters at large elect the individual to fill this critical position does not give enough oversight.
Here in Kansas, our present Governor basically serves as a ceremonial leader and would not be competent in the position of Kansas Education Commissioner. Ditto for the elected Kansas department heads such as secretary of state, insurance commissioner, state treasurer, state printer, etc.
In my opinion, the less job description requirements, the better the candidates that might be found. Obviously, a law degree has no particular value in the position other than accidental. Also a PhD in education is not the target requirement either. Most likely the answer is a lifetime of productive contributions in fields related to education and government administration.
Heartlander: Presuming you are still following this thread, in your blog above, you make quite a case for change in America’s educational system due to our changing economy and movement of industry abroad. So, now what is your prescription for change?
“The system recruits mostly women, who have major household management duties, and so cannot commit themselves fully to their teaching careers. It recruits men who don’t have the drive to work in other fields.”
So . . . teachers consist of women who’d rather be doing housework, and men who’re lazy?
Got any data to back that one up? Otherwise your statements are as unfounded as the new science standards.