Governor Patrick appoints new Council on Education

Here are the members:

The complete list of names on the leadership council, through the press release, includes:

Sen. Robert Antonioni, Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Education and Leominster Democrat

Dan Asquino, Mount Wachusett Community College president

Eduardo Carballo, Holyoke Public Schools superintendent

Patricia Crosby, executive director, Franklin Hampshire Regional Employment Board

Ed Dugger, UNC Partners, Inc.

Grace Fey, executive vice president and director of Frontier Capital Management Company and former chair of the UMass Board of Trustees

Chris Gabrieli, founder of Mass2020 and former Democratic candidate for governor

Rep. Patricia Haddad, House chair of the Joint Committee on Education and Somerset Democrat

Clare Higgins, Northampton mayor

Kathy Kelly, former president of the American Federation of Teachers, Massachusetts

Dr. Ioannis Miaoulis, president and director of the Museum of Science

Dana Mohler-Faria, Patrick?s special education advisor and Bridgewater State College president

Janet Palmer-Owens, acting assistant superintendent, triad A, Boston Public Schools

Paul Reville, executive director of the Rennie Center for Education Policy and Research

Paul Sagan, CEO of Akamai Technologies

Andrea Silbert, CEO of the EOS Foundation and former Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor

Harry Spence, former commissioner of the state Department of Social Services

Henry Thomas, president of the Urban League of Springfield and state Board of Education member

This counsel is to have a draft covering many areas of education reform by March of 2008; then there will be a “listening tour” and a final report in May of 2008.

Interestingly, they are all “busy” except for Harry Spence, who was recently replaced as the Commissioner of the Department of Social Services. 

Patrick must have meant it when he stated that it was not that he had “lost faith” in Harry, but rather wanted “his own team”.

What did Harry Spence have to say:

Spence said he had taken a month off to travel to Greece, but was looking at other potential jobs.

?I?m enjoying unemployment so much, I?m wondering if I want to give it up,? he said after the press conference.

I think having Chairman Haddad as part of this Council makes sense on a number of levels.  I do not know much about the others, and would be interested in learning more [I probably will not have the time to research the council members this month as work is quite busy].

As I know that many of my fellow BlueMassGroup members are teachers, I thought the appointment of this council would be of interest.