Californians to watch in 2014: Board of Education President Michael Kirst tries to shepherd complex school-funding overhaul to reality
Published: Monday, Dec. 30, 2013 - 12:00 am
Last Modified: Monday, Dec. 30, 2013 - 12:21 am
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| California Board of Education President Michael Kirst, at the California Board of Education in Sacramento on Dec. 13, 2013, largely designed, and has a major role in carrying out, the newly approved school Local Control Funding Formula, making him a person to watch in 2014. |
Michael Kirst will mark a half-century in the education policy trenches next year, an anniversary that coincides with major decisions on a landmark school-finance plan he crafted, sold to Gov. Jerry Brown, and now is trying to bring to fruition as president of the California State Board of Education.
Kirst has overseen the process of trying to carry out the Local Control Funding Formula, which revamps the state’s convoluted system of distributing money across its 6.2 million-student school system. But a first draft of regulations was panned by critics and exposed a deep rift about how the formula’s extra money for the neediest students should be allocated.
The formula is the culmination of a career in education that began in 1964 when Kirst, fresh out of Harvard University with a doctorate in political economy and government, joined the then-U.S. Bureau of the Budget (now known as the Office of Management and Budget). He