State board names new education commissioner
Unanimous vote to appoint Corcoran as next school leader
Richard Corcoran, who recently ended a two-year stint as speaker of the Florida House, was named the state’s top education leader on Monday.
The State Board of Education voted unanimously to appoint Corcoran as the next education commissioner after about two hours of discussion and testimony.
“Our children are going to be in great hands,” said Marva Johnson, chair of the state board, as the meeting in Tallahassee wrapped up.
Corcoran, 53, will replace Pam Stewart, who has been commissioner since 2013.
Stewart resigned earlier this month after Gov.-elect Ron DeSantis said he wanted Corcoran — a Pasco County attorney who has been a state lawmaker for eight years — in the job, calling him a “no-nonsense reformer.” The two Republican politicians share an interest in expanding school choice programs that give families options outside traditional public schools.
Corcoran has no education experience, according to a resume
“We want to expand choice. The one-size-fitsall doesn’t work. We need to empower the parents, empower the students.” Richard Corcoran
posted to the board’s agenda. He has spent his professional life as an attorney and lawmaker as well as a staff member for the Republican Party of Florida and for Marco Rubio, when Florida’s current U.S. senator was speaker of the Florida House.
Corcoran is a controversial choice both because of his background and because many education advocates and teachers fear he will harm traditional public schools that educate nearly 90 percent of Florida’s students. The Florida Education Association urged the board to conduct a national search rather than tap Corcoran before anyone else was considered.
But during his remarks to the board on Monday, Corcoran noted that he’d gone to and graduated from Florida’s traditional public schools and said he would focus on issues such as finding and keeping “great teachers” that matter to all students.
“I’m a strong advocate of the public school system,” he said, adding that he knows Florida needs to do more to encourage talented young people to enter the teaching profession. “I think we’re going to get to a better place than we are right now,” he said.
The state board is charged with hiring the education commissioner, who runs the Florida Department of Education and serves as the state’s top educator. But its members are appointed by the governor — the current members are all appointees of Gov. Rick Scott — and they were not likely to buck the incoming executive’s choice.
Johnson is on DeSantis’ inaugural committee and was quoted by DeSantis’ office saying Corcoran “has the knowledge and experience to … protect Florida’s legacy as a national leader in education.” Board member Andy Tuck is on DeSantis’ transition team’s advisory panel on education.
While speaker, Corcoran pushed for changes in Florida’s education system that upset many traditional school advocates, including a new school voucher program that allows students who say they were bullied in public school to get a scholarship to help pay for private school and a new law that allows charter schools — public schools run by private groups — to open near failing traditional public schools without approval from local school boards.
He said he would continue those efforts. “We want to expand choice. The onesize-fits-all doesn’t work,” he added. “We need to empower the parents, empower the students.”
But under questioning from the board — eager to dispel an often-heard criticism — Corcoran also said he had not profited personally from charter schools. His wife, Anne, helped found one in Pasco but by contract gets just a $1 a year for her efforts, he added.
Board members listened to more than a dozen speakers ahead of their vote — some urging other options, others telling them Corcoran was a strong and needed leader — and said they also read hundreds of emails and letters about the former house speaker.
“Florida needs a commissioner who knows education,” said Andrew Spar, a Volusia County teacher now serving as vice president of the association, which is Florida’s statewide teachers union, told the board ahead of the vote.
Spar said the union was “disappointed” in the board’s rush to pick Corcoran but also said it would put together a list of public schools for the new commissioner to visit — one that would highlight the successes and challenges those campuses face.
Corcoran said he would consider such visits.
Rep. Anna Eskamani, DOrlando, was among those who wrote to the board asking members not appoint the former lawmaker. “Mr. Corcoran has no professional background in education beyond his intentional efforts to privatize our state’s public education system. He has spent his career demonizing teachers, building the state’s Republican party, and privatizing schools to send funds to private charters like the one run by his spouse,” she wrote.
The League of Women Voters of Florida also wrote to the board, saying that without a search state education would be faced with “the disruption caused by political patronage appointments of Commissioner of Education.”
But Mark Wilson, president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, disagreed. “We tried national searches,” he said, and they didn’t always work well.
Both of Stewart’s predecessors were hired after such searches and neither stayed long. Stewart was first tapped as an interim leader but then, at Gov. Rick Scott’s urging, given the job permanently. “Rick Scott was right about you and I believe Ron DeSantis was right about Richard Corcoran,” he said at the meeting.
Patricia Levesque, chief executive of former Gov. Jeb Bush’s education foundation, told the board Corcoran was an organized, effective leader and that the father of six would work to “improve the lives of students in this state.”
Johnson said she will negotiate details about Corcoran’s contract and salary and then bring that information back to the board. Stewart was earning $276,000 a year, according to a database of state employees’ pay provided by the governor’s office.