Opinion

Any takers?

TBO.com
Published: August 8, 2012

Does anyone want to be the Florida commissioner of education? Given what has gone on in public education in recent years, the answer seems in doubt.

The State Board of Education — the panel that oversees Florida's public schools — had to hold an emergency meeting last week. The subject of the meeting was finding a replacement for Gerard Robinson, who resigned as education commissioner on July 31, after just 13 months on the job. Robinson, who came to Florida from Virginia, where he was education secretary, said he decided to resign because the job was proving too disruptive to his family. His wife, a tenured law professor at the University of Richmond, hadn't been able to find a comparable post in Florida, so she and the couple's two young daughters were still living in Virginia.

That's a plausible enough explanation for Robinson's decision to resign as Florida education commissioner. Still, it can't be much fun being in charge of public education in Florida, given school districts' money woes and the controversy over testing.

The Board of Education, which hires the education commissioner now that the post is no longer elective, named Pam Stewart, the public schools chancellor, the interim education commissioner. It will now begin a search for a permanent replacement. The last time the post was vacant, in early 2011, only 19 people applied. As these things go, that's not a lot. So it will be interesting to see who, if anyone, wants the job now.