Colorado’s next education chief will face a wide range of 21st century challenges: an intractable achievement gap, ongoing alarm over state funding, and emerging confusion over the role of online schools – just to name a few.
All the issues, of course, will be viewed through the prism of Colorado’s nearly decade-old accountability system and the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Given Gov. Bill Ritter’s inspiring call for more collaborative policy-making at the Capitol, we view William Moloney’s retirement later this year as commissioner of the Colorado Department of Education as a unique opportunity to move education forward.
The State Board of Education, charged with hiring the next commissioner, should find a leader who can pull together the many and often disparate forces in education, while also leading a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers and decision-makers to some sort of consensus about what’s good for Colorado schoolchildren.
For too many years, discussions about public education in Colorado have deteriorated into partisan sniping. Education need not be and should not be a partisan issue. Republicans and Democrats both have good ideas about public education.
Sen. Sue Windels, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said the state board hopes to make a unanimous decision when they hire the next commissioner. While we certainly appreciate the important role dissent plays in politics and education, common ground would be a welcome starting point for the policy issues yet to come.
Though the education commissioner is not appointed by the governor, he or she will be in the governor’s cabinet and cast a long shadow before the legislature.
“Today if you’re not at the table you’re probably on the menu,” said Jane Urschel of the Colorado Association of School Boards. “You have to have someone who understands they serve a publicly elected board and can draw a vision from the board and set out to implement that vision by advising the legislature and saying this is how we’ll oversee K-12 education.” The next commissioner, Urschel said, should make policy by courting bipartisan consensus.
Moloney presided over a period of dramatic change, and even those who disliked his politicized leadership agree that he gave strong voice for the need to close the achievement gap. He gave years of service to Colorado’s schoolchildren.
We hope the board will choose a successor who can build bridges throughout the education community to enable a generation of rebuilding and reform.
