Credit: Claremont Graduate University

Carl Cohn, executive manager, California Collaborative for Educational Excellence

Credit: Claremont Graduate University

Carl Cohn, executive director, California Collaborative for Educational Excellence

Carl Cohn, a quondam longtime Long Embankment Unified superintendent, Land Board of Didactics member and abrupt critic of federally imposed schoolhouse sanctions under the No Kid Left Behind law, will lead a new autonomous country agency that volition direct the state's evolving school improvement system. The five-member lath of the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence announced the engagement of Cohn as its first executive manager on Thursday.

Calling him "a highly respected leader in our profession," Sandy Thorstenson, the chairwoman of the agency and superintendent of the Whittier Union High School District, said Cohn is "the correct vocalism to launch the significant work" of the bureau.

The Legislature established the bureau in the 2022 police creating the Local Control Funding Formula with a $10 million appropriation, although it has just gotten off the footing this year. Every bit its name signals, Gov. Jerry Brownish and the Legislature envisioned the agency taking a more than collaborative and less castigating approach in providing help to districts and schools that neglect to meet either state achievement targets or districts' own accountability goals.

Consistent with the shift in authority from Sacramento to local school boards,  the police says the bureau's purpose is to "advise and assist" districts and help ameliorate the quality of districts' educational activity and leadership. Those are broad purposes creating two singled-out roles, as a banker for promoting best educational practices and as an overseer of the accountability sections of the funding formula, with a direct takeover of a district for academic failure as a last resort.

In an interview Thursday, Cohn said the new position "fits with my philosophy, my passions and approach of trying to motivate and inspire adults who work with kids rather than shaming, embarrassing and punishing them."

"We will not recreate a hierarchy," he said, saying he foresees that the bureau will exist "apartment, active and nimble, ­ a modest functioning with few employees." The goal will exist to build trust and "be seen every bit helpful and focused on offer what districts cannot get elsewhere."

Cohn began a four-decade career in pedagogy as a teacher and counselor in Compton Unified. He served a decade as superintendent in Long Beach, a long tenure for an urban superintendent. In 2003, the year afterward he retired, the highly various district received the Broad Prize for excellence in urban instruction. He also was superintendent of San Diego Unified from 2005 to 2007.

In 2011, Brown appointed him to the state lath; he resigned before this year. He currently is director of the Urban Leadership Plan and a professor in the School of Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University. Cohn also served on the board of directors of EdSource until June 30. He is also chair of the Educators Network for Constructive School Discipline.

Ted Lempert, president of Children At present, an Oakland-based advancement organization, said that Cohn'south feel is consistent with the LCFF statute. "You want someone who gets the bigger picture, shares all-time practices and understands the inside of commune operations.  Carl has a long history of implementing systemic change in districts and working on state-level policy through the country lath."

Cohn will work closely with the superintendents of the 58 county offices of education, which must approve school districts' Local Control and Accountability Plans. These are the school and educatee achievement documents that outline goals, along with actions and expenditures, to run into eight priorities that the Legislature set up out in the funding formula law. The priorities include student outcomes and accomplishment, school climate, student engagement and parent involvement. The plans must specifically target money for "loftier-needs" students – English language learners, depression-income children and foster youth.

The state board has until October 2022 to upshot a fix of rubrics or country metrics that will define minimum levels of achievement that all districts must meet. They may include graduation rates, scores on the Smarter Counterbalanced standardized tests and measures of college and career readiness.

One of Cohn'southward chief jobs may be to compile a library of exemplary LCAPs and a list of districts, county offices and experts in areas like working with English learners or school discipline. They would be recommended to districts that seek help or assigned to those that have persistently performed poorly.

Under the funding formula police force, county offices and eventually the California Collaborative for Education Excellence can intercede in districts that fail to make achievement goals in ane or more than of the country's eight priority areas for multiple subgroups of students over several years. Any commune intervention is expected to be several years away, since rubrics volition first take result in 2016-17.

However, the agency will non have to wait to act in its other part, every bit promoter of quality didactics. The collaborative sees its function as prevention, non intervention, in helping districts ameliorate, said Sue Burr, the state board'due south representative on the agency's board of directors. She said Cohn will take influence in shaping what that volition look similar. "He is probably the most experienced superintendent in the state and nationally recognized," she said. "Nosotros were interested in having someone seen in high regard past colleagues he will be working with."

Cohn said he not only fully supports only is enthusiastic nearly the "restoration of local control – something I never thought I would see again."

"This is a key shift, a very big change considering for more a dozen years, it's all been nigh land capitals and the federal government telling schools what to exercise. This is an opportunity to spread the kind of local buying that brought a degree of success to Long Beach."

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