As we speculated earlier, state Education Commissioner Bob Corkins has resigned. The State Board of Education accepted his resignation today. Corkins, who was paid $140,000 a year, will receive a 30-day severance package estimated at about $11,000. Board chairman Steve Abrams said that he didn’t ask Corkins to resign. “I’ve liked what he’s done for education. I didn’t want to see him go,” Abrams told Associated Press. Most of the state’s citizens (and the majority of new State BOE members) think otherwise.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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35 Comments
It was a bad position for a bad board. I hate to see anyone lose a job, but he should have never had the job in the first place.
buh-bye
Good riddance. Next up: Steve Abrams.
Morris gone.Kline gone.Ryun gone.BonBon Huey gone.Corkins gone.
These corrections have made for a better than usual year in Kansas.
Other than a big paycheck, paid for by the taxpayers, What did this Turkey do for the State?
Does Connie Morris, get to exercise her fantasies in Wash. DC, at taxpayer expense? Because no one, in the bureau of what’s right and proper, has the cajones to stand up and say “NADA.”
We, the Taxpayer, are being bled dry, by the the self serving people in our government. (State and Federal.)
KSN.COM, Is the WORST, online network for news, in all the fifty states. Right there, with “THE WICHITA EAGLE!” (wanna buy a paper.) No news, but plenty of ads.
Good!
Just wondering. How well did Corkins do on the job? Did he have good job reviews? Any negatives? What did he accomplish? Why was he forced to resign?
I know he made the education establishment uncomfortable, which is a plus.
Actually, Corkin did not do a gaddamned thing.
But other than that, he did okay.
After a year in office, his official portrait DID NOT change.
Good job, Bob!!!
Valid question outlander. To which I would add why did he need to hire others to do his job for him?
The issues was not just that he didn’t have an ED background - he had no background at all! A couple of one-man “think tanks” that were really just him and his home computer.
I think there would be merit to getting someone from a non-ed background; it would be interesting to see someone from an industrial or other background. It would be particularly interesting to see a retired executive come forward and offer to “give something back” to the community.
I have no intention of falling into the trap of arguing that only those with education credentials should be administrators in public school systems. But, Corkins was a guy who had nothing but antipathy for public education and taxation for same. He lobbied against public education at the behest of the Koch family. That made him the person to appoint as the head of the state board of education? Only in the parallel universe of Steve Abrams.
And Ben’s right he did have to hire consultants to tell him how to do his job. I can’t recall the exact figures for the consultants fees - but they weren’t free. The foregoing made Corkin’s $140K salary that much more of a waste of tax payer money.
Why do conservative Republicans want to waste tax payer money? I thought they were the party of fiscal restraint in government spending and the party of responsibility. Was I wrong in thinking that? Guess I was…
Another parody of our friend hotlick/fleeting:
GOP = party of fiscal restraint in government spending, unless a wedge issue like evolution is more politically expedient, then, any obsence waste is justified in the service of promoting a culture that no thinking American wants to live in…
Guess he saw the handwriting on the wall huh?
Hey Steve Abrams? You’re next. Why wait for the voters to embarrass you? Quit now. Say you need to spend time with your family, whatever.
Get rid of brownstain and tfart and there won’t be anything wrong with Kansas anymore
“A couple of one-man “think tanks” that were really just him and his home computer. ”
Gee I thought I was the only one!!!! LoL
Oh, Cindy? Cindy DUCKETT?
Your house of conservative public school haters is falling like a house of cards.
Once again, sucks to be you . . .
Mr. Davis,
What evidence do you have that he did anything at the behest of Koch?
And being against tax increases, doesn’t make someone anti-public education.
Try to think a bit before you post.
Wish I’d seen this sooner:http://pitch.com/Issues/2005-12-01/news/feature_1.html
I’m glad to see my home state is showing some sense again.
If Corkins resigned - then why is he being paid a 30-day severance package? Whenever I have resigned a position, I work out my notice and I get paid for any vacation days not used. I certainly never got 30 days of severance pay!
Corkins has been the puppet for the Christian conservatives and since they lost most of thier power a couple weeks ago, this is only the result of that power loss.
What I find interesting is that the so-called Christian Conservatives hate the public school system so much but they sure love the public school system money! These hypocrits are only after the taxpayers money - they could care less about the education system.
Suza–ditto that!
CONservatives are past masters at gaming the system for their benefit while complaining about the POOR gaming the system . . .
It’s likely that the 30-days’ severance is WHY Corkins resigned when he did. If he had waited to resign until the new KBOE members were seated (assuming the choice would be open), then given at least one board member’s comments in today’s Eagle* he wouldn’t have gotten any severance at all. On the other hand, if he had really wanted to stay on then the chances are probably 100% that he would have been fired; in that case, clearly no severance is due.
So if Corkins doesn’t resign before the new board is seated, he loses any hope for severance. If he resigns now, he’s guaranteed severance pay.
It’s very ilkely the severance package explains 100% of why Corkins resigns now.
===========================*-Moderate board member Carol Rupe of Wichita voted against accepting Corkins’ resignation. “I don’t think we have to pay a severance to someone who resigns,” she said.
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/16082166.htm
As usual Steven Davis and Ben Huie are spot on correct.
Corky had no background. And good question “And Ben’s right he did have to hire consultants to tell him how to do his job.”
That tells me that with the FORMER (damn I love typing that!) Kansas Bored of Evangelicals, ideology is all that mattered. Skills, knowledge and practical experience? Feh. All can be forgiven if the ideology is correct.
And corky was perfectly aligned with that embarassment of a KBOE.
Maybe now that the ADULTS are in charge again, Kansas can reclaim its long lost reputation as a leader in education.
Oh, and Pam D, we still need to get rid of Pat “I heart everything bush says” Roberts.
THEN, we could have a trifecta and less would be wrong with Kansas.
Oh Mr. Smiley,
Corkins ran the Flint Hills Public Policy Institute. Flint Hills is an anti-tax organization that is FUNDED by the Kochs.
Here is a link:http://www.flinthills.org/
So that is the connection to the Kochs. TRY to be informed BEFORE you post. I know it goes against your basic nature, but you still might want to give it a try and see what it feels like.
Ah ha! I thought so!
I e-mailed and called them up a few years ago and they in no uncertain terms refused to give me any information about their funding.
Kochs of course would make perfect sense. A couple of the richest guys in the country trying to avoid helping the society that gave them practically everything–even the company was handed to them by their old man . . .
Koch family members are among the 50 richest people on the planet. They are certain that they should not have to pay taxes. They support free-market solutions, don’t you know…
Either the grandfather or father (cannot recall which) of the Kochs running the company now, was a founding member of the John Birch Society.
I have this feeling of pride whenever I think that Wichita, Kansas was a birthing place for ideas espoused by the John Birch Society and the Church of Scientology.
Hey, Kirstie Alley, I found some early writings of L. Ron Hubbard, in my attic. I will make you a good deal on this treasure… :-)
Capn
As a nonprofit Flint Hills is required by Federal Law to publicly disclose who gives them funds. If they try that stunt again about not telling you who gives them money, I would call whichever federal law enforcement agency deals with that type of problem.
I’ve “talked” to the current director there via emails and he seemed like a nice enough guy. He was a big shot at the CATO institute before coming to run the Koch propaganda arm. (my source for this latter info was Phillip Brownlee)
I want to back up and say that I think that the people working at the Flint Hills Institute of Public Policy are most likely well meaning people. It is just that when an organization is against:1) public funding of education,2) health insurance, &3) taxation,I have to ask - what have children, sick people, and the poor ever done to you guys?
Joe Williams — you certainly cannot start your campaign for governor dogging one of the best public education systems in the United States. It is un-American and anti-Kansan. You barely drew 22% vs Huy, and a Dem takes her out easily. Don’t go libertarian - you will end up a career poly sci major at WSU looking for work.
Apophis,
As usual, you make common sense posts. If you and that knucklehead Heartlander ever decide on a public debate, I want to be on the front row!!!
I am here, CapnAmerica, and I am in no way feeling threatened by this not unexpected story. I’ve seen philosophical majorities switch many times. This one is no different from the others.
The liberals now have board control for a while. In another while, the pendulum will swing back to the conservatives.
It’s probably a good thing for all that it works this way.
My only regret in this story is a personal one.
Bob Corkins is a good man — a VERY good man. He deserved better than what he got — and Kansas deserves whatever it ends up with next.
Most people think of school choice (one of the issues Corkins’ was criticized over) as a conservative one. It is not that. The greatest support for school choice comes from African American and Hispanics who are typically aligned with the Democratic party.
Check out BAEO (Black Alliance for Educational Options) and HCREO (Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options.
Check out Polly Williams — a Democratic legislator from Wisconsin, or Dr. Howard Fuller — the former superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools.
The list of real school reformers is a long one for those who care to look for it, and many of the folks on that list are liberal, minority supporters of school choice.
Bob Corkins has much in common with those people. In time, I sincerely believe that he could have moved this state forward by leaps and bounds, but we’ll never know that now.
Kansas “moderates” and liberals “think” that they took a step forward with the results of this last election and the fall out from it such as this particular story.
In my humble opinion, in the Corkins example, we just took a HUGE step back.
We’re not going to see much in the way of reform for sometime now. We will see a lot more of the status quo, and of course, even greater demands for more and more money.
I’ll bet, too, that there are many DOE employees weeping over this resignation.
Somewhere, I read that after Corkins took over, more than 50 DOE employees left by their own choice. No doubt, that was an accurate report.
What it failed to mention, however, is that — for the most part — those who left were “old school, stick-in-the-mud” types resistant to change.
Those who stayed and who were willing to adapt, were quickly won over by Corkins.
Most of the DOE staff are women with children. Corkins introduced flex time to address the needs of those employees and he worked with them in many ways. Those people, I’m sure, will miss him greatly, and I suspect that they are worried, too, about having to take a step backward. Those who left were unable to abide such “radical” changes.
Those in the majority posting here appear to be having a very good time at the expense of a top notch person. That’s really a shame.
Think whatever you will, but I will always be proud to call Bob Corkins a friend.
Good, I’m glad Bobby is your friend. Post some evidence of your claims about how he made things better at the Dept of Ed. I am thinking it may be a while before you’re able to dig up much on that score.
Here’s another Corkins story that I suspect most of you never saw. The author (former op-ed page editor at the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Senior Fellow on Education for the Lexington Institute) — as well as David Awbrey — are both also long-time friends of mine. :)
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=18918
THE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE19 South LaSalle Street #903Chicago, IL 60603phone 312/377-4000 ยท fax 312/377-5000http://www.heartland.org
——————————————————————————–
Kansas Education Chief Advocates Vouchers
Author: Robert HollandPublished by: The Heartland InstitutePublished in: School Reform NewsPublication date: May 2006
Two qualities set Kansas Education Commissioner Bob Corkins apart from other states’ chief school officers.
One: He came to the job from outside the field of professional education.
Two: He is an advocate of vouchers and other forms of choice for students whose needs are not being met in the public school system.
A lawyer who has directed libertarian-leaning think tanks, Corkins won the commissioner’s job last October when a six-member conservative majority of the 10-member Kansas Board of Education decided a fresh perspective would be helpful in reforming public education.
“I believe it is most likely that we will be able to have significant changes only if we have someone from outside the system be able to establish the vision of … what is possible,” said Steve Abrams, a member of the State Board majority that confirmed Corkins’ appointment.
Reaching Out
Non-educators have assumed the leadership of big-city school systems in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York, but Corkins, 45, is the first outsider to become a state commissioner.
His appointment drew loud criticism from the education community, major newspapers, and even the state’s governor. While some questioned his ability to run a large state bureaucracy, the most vehement opposition was leveled at his advocacy of vouchers and charter schools.
After his first six months on the job, Corkins has not backed down on his support for school choice, but he has reached out to skeptics and foes and has even begun to find some common ground with them.
Researching Choice
Corkins supports targeted vouchers to assist low-income, at-risk, and disabled pupils, contending that providing such options “would strengthen the public school system” and not just the private sector. After extensive hearings on vouchers early in Corkins’ tenure, the state board of education decided to give the proposal further study, by no means closing the door.
A lawyer by training, Corkins deepened his pro-school-choice convictions when he served during much of the 1990s as director of fiscal policy for the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, a position that put him in the thick of battles over school finance. The Kansas native began researching the meaning of political labels such as conservatism and classical liberalism. He said the work done by organizations such as the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation led him to embrace educational choice.
“I saw that school choice was the answer to many of the financial and academic deficiencies of the K-12 system,” Corkins said.
Reflecting Values
Many of the hottest controversies in education, such as “sex education courses, the teaching of science, the choice of textbooks, and the usefulness of various education theories, could best be addressed by providing greater school choice,” Corkins said. Parents and teachers could select schools whose missions and methods best reflect their own values and convictions.
Corkins has headed free-market-oriented think tanks, such as the Flint Hills Public Policy Institute in Wichita, but he said what drives his commitment to school choice is “not simply a desire to achieve competition. That’s not the endgame. The endgame is improving student outcomes. School choice is a means to that end.”
While the commissioner more than once has had the sinking feeling of entering a room packed with hundreds of people philosophically opposed to him and “loaded for bear,” he has found a lot more support talking to staffers and local educators in more informal settings.
Making Changes
Last year, the new commissioner explained his vision for choice in terms of personalizing education and making schools flexible and adaptable. Recently, he asked small groups of educators what they would like to see happen in the next 10 years, and he heard similar objectives: personalized, flexible, adaptable schools. That doesn’t mean he has converted them to his view on vouchers, but he now sees the beginning of a shared language and vision.
“This is where I’ve been able to find some strong common ground,” Corkins said. He is particularly proud of a rare 10-0 state board of education vote approving his proposal for a longitudinal student-data analysis that will enable the state to track the achievement progress of individual students. All factions in the state agree the federal No Child Left Behind approach of judging schools according to the “adequate yearly progress” of clusters of students is woefully misguided.
The emphasis should be on the individual, Corkins said. NCLB, by contrast, compares subgroups of students that are not even the same clusters of children from year to year. Kansas’s new approach will enable educators to “monitor individual student growth year to year.” The U.S. Department of Education is about to evaluate such a “growth model” in several states. Corkins hopes the feds eventually will adopt it for NCLB, and he says Kansas will be in a position to hit the ground running with it.
Charters
Meanwhile, with the board’s support, Corkins is going full stream ahead with proposals in the state legislature to strengthen Kansas’ charter school law. One measure would give charter applicants the power to appeal a rejection by a local school board to the state board of education. A second would guarantee charter schools a fairer share of public funding.
While per-pupil spending in regular Kansas public schools averages more than $10,000, the state’s 26 charter schools are expected to make do on just $4,100 per student. Corkins wants to add “weighting factors” that will reward charter schools for the work they do with low-income and bilingual children, and ensure them at least $5,600 per student.
“We have had a charter school law for 10 years, as has Arizona, and yet we have just 26 charter schools while Arizona has hundreds,” said Corkins, adding that giving charter applicants a right to appeal local rejections could jump-start the movement.
Winning Support
Corkins’ communications director, David Awbrey–a former editorial page editor for The Wichita Eagle (and more recently the Burlington, Vermont, Free Press)–believes the unconventional commissioner is making progress in winning over those who doubted his capacity to lead.
“Interestingly,” Awbrey observed, “Bob’s initial lack of expertise with many educational issues has proved to be one of his strongest assets. It has allowed him to think differently and to chart a new direction for what had been a staid, change-resistant state agency.
“For example, one of Bob’s first acts was to introduce flex-time scheduling for department employees,” Awbrey said. “That policy was resisted by the previous administration, even though the department employs large numbers of women with children and [those with] other obligations who need some flexibility in their jobs. The response has been universally positive, and Bob has won the loyalty of many once-skeptical staff members for his willingness to listen to new ideas and to respond to employee concerns about workplace issues.”
Playing Politics
Many in the larger education community may never accept Corkins, Awbrey said, because “he is not part of their club” and remains devoted to fundamental, choice-based reform.
Ultimately, politics may determine whether Corkins will have a decent chance to overhaul the system. Four of the six board members who supported his appointment are up for re-election this fall, and opponents are lining up to make Corkins himself the key issue.
———————————-Robert Holland (rholl1176@aol.com) is an author and journalist who writes frequently about education.
Steven,
Was 8 minutes fast enough for you?? :)
Two cents worth: I just read your comments above and find them not worth two cents.
To be more specific, Corkins’ “longitudinal student analysis” would have been another make-work, paper shuffling activity at the state level that would probably require some 200 to 300 record keepers at the local school board level in Kansas — another group of school employees not meeting face to face with students where the real work is needed.
Regarding charter schools, several definitions exist. However, I suspect Corkins’ interest is in establishing “charter” schools outside of jurisdiction of local school boards but at taxpayer expense. In these, “wannabes” like Corkins could experiment with their pet theories with cherry-picked students who would likely excel under most circumstances but probably less so under the tutelege of Bob Corkins types.
Of course, Corkins will suggest a “low ball,” unproven estimate of cost for his schools which cost estimate is not insured for the future.
Your quotation mentions Dave Awbrey’s participation as a public information type with Corkin’s administration. Of course, Awbrey and Corkins are hometown boys from Hutchinson. Awbrey had a checkered career at K.U. and has hopscotched around in the newspaper business including here with the Wichita Eagle. His stay on Corkins’ Kansas Board of Education staff was short, I would estimate roughly six months.
Corkins is another of the so-called conservative birds who befuddled his brain by hiding in a Kansas law school.
He is receiving what he tried to sow.
twocentsworth, you said you’re proud to count David Awbrey a friend of yours.
Is this the same David Awbrey, former KSDE Commnunications Director, who stated that “dinosaurs are metaphysical speculations?”