CA: K-12 education - Fumbling in the governor's office

Sac Bee ^ | 8/25/04 | Peter Schrag

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Running California's huge, three-headed public education system is hard enough under the best of circumstances. But when the state Board of Education, which is supposed to set curricular policy and standards, is in near-revolt against the governor's office, as it was last week, it's time to sound the alarm.

The main target of the revolt is Bonnie Reiss, senior adviser to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the view of board insiders, she has mishandled policy and often disregarded the board, which has been the prime force in establishing and defending California's academic standards and accountability system. Those standards are widely listed as among the best in the nation.

Reiss says everything is fine. She thinks the world of the board, she said. The board, of which she herself is a member, "is fabulous." But in the past two weeks, Rae Belisle, the board's highly regarded executive director, resigned; one of the 10 regular board members is on the verge of submitting her resignation; and several others have privately told close acquaintances that they're mad enough to quit as well. Their main complaint is that under Reiss' influence, the governor is giving up control to groups bent on undermining the state's school standards.

Because the board's angry people include some of the governor's own appointees, and because most are academic centrists or conservatives while Reiss is a West Los Angeles liberal all makes the friction even more embarrassing for the governor.

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The disaffected board members have told friends that Reiss, an entertainment lawyer with Kennedy family connections, knows little about education - or about government - and because she has too much on her plate, she doesn't have time to learn. (The governor's education secretary, ex-Mayor Richard Riordan of Los Angeles, another novice on state education policy, is often out of the loop altogether.)