Photo: Janet Weeks/SBE

Linda Darling-Hammond is sworn in past State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond as president of the State Board of Educational activity in Sacramento on March 14, 2019

Photo: Janet Weeks/SBE

Linda Darling-Hammond is sworn in by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond as president of the State Lath of Pedagogy in Sacramento on March 14, 2019

Updated on Nov. 10 at vi p.m.

Ending considerable speculation in media and education circles, Linda Darling-Hammond, the president of the California State Board of Education, says she is committed to staying in California, and is not interested in becoming the next U.S. Secretary of Education.

Darling-Hammond is currently heading up the teaching transition team for President-elect Joe Biden.  She had been viewed as a pinnacle prospect to become education secretarial assistant in a Biden cabinet. But, she said, "I want to become that speculation out of the way."

"I am not interested in that role," she said. "My commitment to Gov. Newsom and the California agenda that nosotros are pursuing through the Land Board of Education are paramount to me." She said she had told Gov. Gavin Newsom of her intention to stay in California.

"She is a vital leader in my administration, and is instrumental in advancing our shared objectives to expand disinterestedness, set the course to universal pre-Thou, and ready all students for success in college, careers, and civic engagement—specially as we manage the impacts of COVID-xix," Newsom said in response to this development. "I am thrilled that Linda volition keep to architect and bulldoze our vision for educational activity in California, in addition to advising President-Elect Biden and his transition team as they chart a meliorate course for our students nationwide."

California's public school system serves 6.2 1000000 children, or 1 in eight public schoolchildren in the U.S., and more than the total public school enrollment in many countries. It also has the highest proportion of poor children of any state.

Darling-Hammond also headed upwards the education transition team for President-elect Barack Obama in 2008, and in that location was similar speculation that she might be his secretarial assistant of education. Obama concluded selecting Chicago schools superintendent Arne Duncan for the position.

Darling-Hammond is one of the nation's foremost education researchers and policy analysts. She is a professor of education emeritus at Stanford University'south Graduate School of Pedagogy, where she was on the faculty for several decades. She left Stanford in 2022 to establish the Learning Policy Institute, a research and policy organization based in Palo Alto, where she is currently president.  She said that continuing the work at the Learning Policy Institute was also a major factor in her desire to stay in California.

Darling-Hammond had been an education advisor to Gov. Jerry Brown, where she championed state funding for teacher residencies and other programs to expand the teacher workforce, among other priorities. Shortly later being elected, Gov. Newsom named her to head the 11-member State Board of Education in February 2019. She assumed the unpaid position at what she described at the times as "a critical moment in California education."

California had introduced a series of landmark pedagogy reforms beginning in 2013. Those included the Local Control Funding Formula, which targets additional funds to low-income students and English language learners, and a new accountability system based on multiple measures, not just test scores. The state also put in identify a support system designed to assistance rather than punish struggling schools.

When Newsom appointed her to the board, Darling-Hammond said she was interested in "continuing that very strong reform trajectory," while "taking it to the side by side level." She emphasized that making reforms piece of work can take many years. "Any state or nation that has improved didactics outcomes has had a xv- to 20-twelvemonth trajectory and stayed the course" with reform initiatives, she said.

The coronavirus pandemic has interrupted the implementation of some reforms. The state board and all education institutions in the state are grappling with the more firsthand challenge of educating children via distance learning with a minimum of learning loss, and, increasingly, how to get students and staff back to school safely for face-to-face instruction.

Darling-Hammond said were she to become secretary, "it would undermine our ability to reach the goals we are committed to achieving in California. I am determined to follow through on that delivery."

Carl Cohn, the sometime school superintendent in Long Beach and San Diego who also served on the State Board of Teaching, said that if Darling-Hammond were to head the Land Board for viii years, as did her predecessor Michael Kirst during Gov. Dark-brown's last viii years in role, that would assure sixteen years of policy continuity in California.

"That is something that would be unprecedented in almost states," said Cohn, who was the founding manager of the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence. "It is very of import that in that location be continuity of leadership. If that is in fact what is unfolding, I applaud Linda'due south commitment to our land and to seeing through 16 years of of import returns of reforms based on local control and equity."

Update: This report was updated on Nov. 10 to reflect confirmation of Darling-Hammond's role in the transition and remarks from Gov. Newsom.

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