January 11, 2019

This week, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond had his first day on the job. Michael Kirst also had his last meeting as president of the State Board of Education. In this week’s podcast, we play an excerpt of Thurmond’s inaugural remarks at McClatchy High School in Sacramento and our exit interview with Kirst, who was former Gov. Jerry Brown’s education adviser for five decades and the architect of many of the policies that have reshaped California’s K-12 schools during the past eight years.

While expressing satisfaction with changes so far, Kirst warns that a lack of funding for teacher and principal training in the new academic standards and a lack of guidance from the state on strategies to improve will undermine the new reforms. He also calls for more school funding and a data system that will track students from preschool to the workplace.

For background: