The State Board of Education quizzed the five top candidates for the job of education commissioner Monday, pressing each on their commitment to controversial reforms such as teacher merit pay and the push toward tougher school and student standards.
The six-member State Board of Education spent Monday afternoon interviewing five candidates for the job of Education Commissioner. Whoever is selected will be in charge of nearly 3,700 public schools that serve 2.6 million children and oversee a multi-billion education budget and almost 1,000 Department of Education employees.
Though each of the five candidates pledged support for Florida’s biggest education reforms, such as the move toward more school choice through expanded charter school and voucher programs, they also came armed with new ideas for how to improve education in Florida, ranging from more school autonomy, to increased emphasis on vocational programs, drop-out prevention and even an expansion of pre-kindergarten programs to as young as age three.
The candidates were selected from a pool of more than two dozen applicants and came from diverse backgrounds.
They include:
- Bret Schundler, the former education commissioner of New Jersey who was fired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and is a former New Jersey candidate for governor
- Gerard Robinson, the current secretary of education for Virginia
- Loretta Costin, the head of career and adult education at the Department of Education
- Thomas Jandris, education policy expert and the dean of graduate programs at Concordia University in Chicago
- Stacia Smith, superintendent of the Clark County, Ohio Education Service Center.
The board did not make any hiring choices Monday, though a decision could come as early as Tuesday.
