Michael Kirst PhD., President of the California State Board of Education Visits!

We are honored to have had Dr. Michael Kirst, President of the State Board of Education, as our speaker this Friday. Dr. Kirst is Professor Emeritus of Education and Business Administration at Stanford University. He has been on the Stanford faculty since 1969. In 2011, he became the President of the California State Board Of Education for the second time. Professor Kirst was a member of the California State Board of Education (1975/1982) and its president from 1977 to 1981. Dr. Kirst received his Ph.D. in political economy and government from Harvard. Before joining the Stanford University faculty, Dr. Kirst held several positions with the federal government, including Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Manpower, Employment and Poverty, and Director of Program Planning for the Elementary and Secondary Education of the US Office of Education. 

 

He is currently taking on the roll-out of the Common Core Standards here in California. These standards aim to align diverse state curricula to a consistent, clear set of standards nationwide that students are expected to learn. Forty-five states, the District of Columbia, four territories and the Department of Defense Education Activity have already independently adopted the standards. This is quite an undertaking in California where he has to try and satisfy the breadth of opinion from 6.2 million students and their parents, 310,000 teachers and their administrators, and the State and Federal policy makers. No easy task. Photos Courtesy of Ted Mock.