Qualifications for education commissioner should rise above politics. (Bill Cotterell, Tallahassee Democrat)

Our current Education Commissioner, former Assistant St. Johns County School Superintendent Pamela Stewart, is a qualified educator.  She's resigned.

In her place, the State Board of Education needs to hire another educator and reject CORCORAN, who got his law degree at right-wing nut PAT ROBERTSON's Regent University.

Separation of Church and State is a priority.

Departing Florida House Speaker RICHARD CORCORAN thinks he's slick, but is he a hick hack looking to cramdown Charter Schools and destroy public education?

What do y'all reckon?









Qualifications for education commissioner should rise above politics 
Bill Cotterell, Capital Curmudgeon Published 3:06 p.m. ET Dec. 8, 2018
Tallahassee Democrat

The Florida Constitution provides:

“The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the state of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders.”

That article goes on to say there will be a kindergarten system and to spell out duties and responsibilities of the Department of Education. In a separate action, the Constitution Revision Commission in 1998 reorganized the Cabinet, removing the commissioner of education and making that important post an appointive job, but the Constitution doesn’t set qualifications for the commissioner.

Florida’s top education official is officially hired by the State Board of Education, upon nomination by the governor. If the 1998 CRC intended to get some politics out of public education, by switching from statewide election to gubernatorial appointment of commissioners, that hasn’t happened.

On paper, executive appointment affords an opportunity for a governor and State Board to do a nationwide search and, once they decide what they want in a commissioner, hire an expert in education policy, legislative relations and administrative management. The skills needed to win an election are not the same as the ability to run a big department.

Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis late last week announced his selection of Richard Corcoran, the immediate past speaker of the Florida House, to succeed Commissioner Pam Stewart as head the DOE. Board approval is expected, but Corcoran’s affection for what Republicans call “school choice” – and Democrats refer to “privatization” – has made his nomination more controversial than most.

That Corcoran enthusiastically shares the incoming governor’s conservative views of education is hardly surprising. If Andrew Gillum had won the election, don’t you think he’d be selecting a liberal commissioner deeply committed to everything the Democrats and the Florida Education Association believe?

What you see as politicizing education (or the lottery, the prison system, the courts or anything else controlled by a new governor) depends on whom you liked for governor. A look at recent DOE commissioners, elected or appointed, would indicate that politics has always figured more prominently than classroom experience.

About 50 years ago, there was Floyd Christian, a former Pinellas County educator who was skilled at winning election but wound up getting convicted of a federal tax rap. That allowed Gov. Reubin Askew in 1973 to appoint Gainesville Rep. Ralph Turlington – like Corcoran, a former House speaker – who won some re-elections and didn’t run again in 1986 so he could lead the constitutional amendment campaign for the state lottery.

Then there was Betty Castor, a Tampa legislator who went on to become president of the University of South Florida and ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. She was replaced for about a year by former Rep. Doug Jamerson of St. Petersburg, who was appointed by Gov. Lawton Chiles. He was defeated by Frank Brogan, a former classroom teacher and county school superintendent – and Republican – in the Gingrich Revolution of 1994.

Jeb Bush picked Brogan for lieutenant governor in 1998, the year the CRC removed the education commissioner from the elected Cabinet and made post elective as of 2002. Tom Gallagher, a former legislator and insurance commissioner who’d run for governor, was elected in 1998 but switched back to insurance commissioner in 2000 and Charlie Crist became the last elected education commissioner.

Then again, what hasn’t Charlie Crist run for?

Jeb Bush made education the cornerstone of his administration, selecting former Sen. Jim Horne – like Corcoran, a legislative insider and former appropriations chairman – as the first appointed DOE chief.

It signaled a major philosophical shift toward charter schools, tuition vouchers and everything else anathema to Democrats. Experience in education or government administration was still nice, but an unyielding belief in taxpayer support of private schools was indispensable.

The common thread running through all these elected or appointed commissioners has been political favoritism. Turlington, Castor, Gallagher and Crist were all politicians, more than educators or executive administrators, and they ran their offices – ran for their offices – as opportunities presented themselves.

We have standard qualifying criteria for some executive appointees, in agencies with far smaller budgets and less impact on lives of Floridians than DOE has. It might be impossible to get politically motivated legislators to define what talents and experience we want for the most expensive and important function of state government.

But the criteria should be more than just sharing the governor’s opinions on charter schools and tuition vouchers.


Bill Cotterell is a retired Tallahassee Democrat reporter who writes a twice-weekly column. He can be reached at bcotterell@tallahassee.com