Brown scuttles secretary of education
Will Kirst be the go-to guy on school matters?
Gov. Schwarzenegger had a succession of six secretaries of education. Gov. Jerry Brown will have none. Brown made it official Friday: The office of the secretary, with its dozen employees, is toast.
Brown, who didn’t have a secretary of education the first time around, may have eliminated the office regardless of the budget crisis. There’s already confusion over authority among a State Board of Education, the governor and an independently elected superintendent of public instruction. The education secretary had no constitutional authority. Closing down the shop makes Brown’s point that he’ll scale back state government.
But the elimination of the office raises the question of who will speak for the governor on education matters. It could be Michael Kirst, who will be elected president of the State Board