Brown appoints majority to State Board
Back to the future with Kirst and Honig
Three decades after naming Michael Kirst and Bill Honig to the State Board of Education, Gov. Jerry Brown has turned to them again. Now, like Brown, in their early 70s, they will lead a new majority on the Board that he appointed Wednesday.
Brown moved with unusual speed in replacing five holdover State Board members, including President and fellow Democrat Ted Mitchell, and in appointing two others to replace two Board members whose terms expire Jan. 15. The appointments send a strong signal that Brown wants an experienced, less activist Board that will immediately focus on his priorities.
Five new Board members, all Democrats: Kirst; Honig, a controversial former three-term state Superintendent of Public Instruction; former Long Beach and San Diego Superintendent Carl Cohn; California Teachers Association lobbyist Patricia Ann Rucker; and James
