Our Fearless Leaders

The panel in charge of selling NJ's Race To The Top to Ed Secretary Arne Duncan has been announced. Leading the group are:

Bret Schundler, Commissioner of Education

Teaching Experience: None
School/District Administrative Experience: None
Educational Research Experience: None
Other: Apparently, less than one year as the "COO" of King's College, a school that hires professors without advanced degrees and is located in the Empire State Building.

Andrew Smarick, Deputy Commissioner of Eucation

Teaching Experience: None

School/District Administrative Experience: "Co-founder and board member of KIPP Harbor Academy," which, near as I can tell, closed after less than three years. Doesn't appear to have done anything having to do with the day-to-day operation of the school.

Educational Research Experience: None

Other: Cut his political teeth in the Bush 43 administration.

Daniel Gohl is a former teacher and principal who appears to have staked his career on school turnaround, and is now based in Newark. He started a technology high school in DC that students must be admitted to; looks like he left one year after getting a full student body in place. He has fully embraced the education-industrial complex and their vocabulary.

I can't find much of anything about Rochelle Hendricks, except she's a big charter proponent and is overseeing conversion of a Catholic high school in Patterson to a charter.

Willa Spicer is a real-world educator with plenty of experience in education policy.

So:

• A politician
• A political operative
• A former principal turned consultant who embraces the "turnaround" philosophy and the notion of tracking students
• A charter cheerleader
• Someone eminently qualified to make education policy.

I think we have a pretty good idea, based on this, as to what our RTTT application will contain. 

By the way: would it have killed anyone to put a current public school teacher or principal on this team?