CA’s Education Leadership Mishmash Makes it Hard to Know Who’s Accountable

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Dan Walters

CalMatters

Opinion

California’s public school system, which purports to educate nearly 6 million students ranging from 4-year-olds in transitional kindergarten to near-adults preparing to graduate from high school, is in a world of hurt.

Its students perform poorly in national tests of academic achievement, some local school districts flirt with insolvency as unions press for raises to offset spikes in living costs, politicians wrangle over money while issuing a steady stream of mandates and demands and — on top of everything — nobody knows who is accountable for outcomes.

The lack of accountability stems from the construction — in layer after layer — of overlapping bits of authority th