California Rising Through New Education Policies

California Rising: An interview with Mike Kirst

By Marc Tucker

Mike Kirst has had a distinguished career as a leading education policy analyst.  But, he’s not just an observer.  Kirst has long been in the thick of the action, starting with key leadership positions on the U.S. Senate Staff, in the Executive Office of the President of the United States and at the U.S. Department of Education.  Kirst was Jerry Brown’s education advisor during both of his successful runs for Governor of California.  In both cases, the new Governor asked Kirst to stay on as the President of the California State Board of Education, the post in which Kirst now serves.
Marc Tucker: For a long time, many of us viewed California as a national basket case, with a hopelessly snarled decision structure for education.  That is clearly not true anymore.  What happened?

Michael Kirst: We had a strong policy window—a big confluence of strong political leadership, a unified Democratic Party, an economic recovery and good ideas—the timing was really good.

MT: But this a case of more than just good luck.  What’s the rest of the story?

Education Week

Brown administration looks to diminish influence of API

by Kimberly Beltran

(Calif.) Move over API. You’re not the top dog for determining school success anymore, the president of the state’s Board of Education said this week.

Instead, if Mike Kirst gets his way, the Academic Performance Index – long the state’s go-to tool for measuring how well schools are performing – will become in the eyes of the public just one component of a much larger, more robust reporting tool already required under the new Local Control Funding Formula.

“In the past the API was the be-all, end-all and now it’s just part of a much bigger system. People need to move beyond the API,” Kirst said in an interview Wednesday.

Cabinet Report