LOCAL AND STATE EXPERTS TO ADVISE FEDERAL OFFICIALS ON EDUCATION ACHIEVEMENT GAP + smf’s 2¢

Howard Blume, LA Times/ LA Now | http://lat.ms/gbk6EP

February 17, 2011 |  1:45 pm - Educators and advocates with local ties will take part in a federal commission that will examine to what extent funding for the nation's schools is delivered equally and fairly to low-income and minority students.

The goal is to recommend policies and funding plans that would help close the achievement gap between white and Asian students and their low-income and minority peers.

The commission co-chairmen are Christopher Edley, the dean of UC Berkeley Law School, and Reed Hastings, the co-founder of Netflix who served as president of the state Board of Education from 2000 to 2004.

Other members of the commission include: Stanford University law professor Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar; Stanford education professor Linda Darling-Hammond; Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institute; Matt Miller, host of "Left, Right & Center" on local NPR affiliate KCRW; and Thomas Saenz, the president and general counsel of the L.A.-based Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The U.S. Department of Education formed the commission in response to a congressional request within a 2010 budget appropriation. The commission will meet for the first time in public session next week in Washington.

 smf’s 2¢: It isn’t how you play the game, it’s who keeps score that counts: There are some that might say that Reed Hastings never saw a charter school he didn’t like.  And Thomas Saenz was Mayor Tony’s lawyer in his failed and thrice-judged unconstitutional attempt to take over LAUSD.