In one of his first appointments, Gov. Jerry Brown has chosen Bill Honig, a once nationally acclaimed education leader who was effectively frozen out of the reform movement in the state for nearly 20 years, to serve on the State Board of Education.
Before the era of term limits, Honig was elected to three four-year terms as state superintendent of public instruction, starting in 1983, but was forced to resign in 1993 as a result of one of the state's nastiest legal battles involving a statewide elected official – one that he and many supporters believed was politically motivated.
In an outcome that few expected, he was convicted on several conflict-of-interest felony charges and forced out of office. Those charges were later reduced to misdemeanors by the same judge who originally sentenced him. Now, in what some might view as a bold act of redemption, and others as a wise use of an undervalued human resource, or both, Brown has appointed Honig to the same board he served on during Brown's first term – before he ran for the elected superintendent's position.
Marshall Smith, the former dean of the Stanford School of Education who has held high positions in the U.S. Department of Education in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, said:
The choice of Bill Honig is a good sign that our new governor puts quality and knowledge over politics. His work as state superintendent in the 1980s put California at the forefront of the standards movement, a position the state then lost in the mid-90s after he had left. His experience, wisdom and drive will serve the state well in the coming years.
In addition to Honig, Brown appointed six others to the 11 member largely volunteer board, including Michael Kirst, a Stanford emeritus professor who was president of the Board of Education in Brown's first administration. Education sources say Kirst is virtually certain to be elected president at the board's first meeting in Sacramento next week.
The character of the board will change significantly. Brown has chosen several experienced educators with no apparent ties to any particular education reform camp. He has aso appointed a CTA official, which would have been unheard of under Gov. Schwarzenegger. (For more details, check out John Fensterwald’s analysis here.)
In a telephone conversation yesterday, Honig, whom I covered as an education reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle 20 years ago, referred only briefly to the controversy that drove him from office and preferred to talk about the work that lies ahead. "That was a long time ago," Honig told me. "I paid whatever dues I was suppose to pay, and that is behind us."
He said he now sees the ingredients for all sectors of the education establishment to work together for the first time in many years. "Gov. Brown is not going to beat up on the schools, but is saying 'let's build on what works and what we have in place,'" he said. "It is a much more supportive attitude."
Brown himself defended his appointment of Honig yesterday, referring to any controversy it might generate in cryptic, even Zen-like, terms. "You can't create an omelet without breaking the eggs," he said. Honig, he said, "has the knowledge and skills to be quite valuable, and it would be a shame to waste that."
Honig became state schools chief for the first time in 1983, the same year that the "A Nation at Risk" report, chaired by then-UC President David Gardiner, triggered national soul-searching by declaring that a "rising tide of mediocrity" had overtaken the nation's schools "that threatens our very future as a nation."
Riding the momentum generated by the report, Honig pushed to establish detailed curriculum guidelines in several subject areas. Textbooks were revised. New partnerships with businesses were established. Schools were required to issue an annual "report card." Tests were radically revised to include writing samples and problem-solving in math in place of multiple-choice questions. Test scores rose significantly.
Ernest Boyer, the highly regarded director of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, told me at the time, "California is at the very cutting edge of giving structure and direction to the essential questions in education."
In a 1990 article I wrote, Susan Fuhrman, now president of Teachers College at Columbia University, said that Honig looked "like the visionary who is leading the whole process."
Honig, a Democrat, was so successful that he emerged as a potential if unlikely gubernatorial candidate who might run against then-Gov. George Deukmejian. He angered both Deukmejian and then Gov. Pete Wilson for his relentless criticism of their school budget-cutting and other policies. An idea generator, with a restless personality, he also triggered opposition from conservatives on a range of issues.
Finally, in 1993, then-Attorney General Dan Lungren, a Republican, continued to press charges against Honig on a complex case that involved among other issues his wife's use of the converted top floor of their San Francisco home to house a successful parent involvement organization she had started. The nonprofit group, which received a contract from the California Department of Education, which Honig headed, also paid rent to the Honigs. Honig said at the time he didn't even want to accept rent, but the board of the organization had insisted on paying it.
The judge placed strict limits on evidence that could be admitted in Honig's defense. In what at the time was a shocking conclusion to the trial, Honig was found guilty on four felony charges and was put on probation, ordered to pay restitution, and perform several months of community service.
A scathing Sacramento Bee editorial at the time heaped harsh criticism on the verdict and the trial itself:
In a town hip-deep in sleazy politicians, in a state where children are randomly murdered on the streets, and sometimes in their homes, where many people are afraid to walk at night ... the attorney general, after a two-year investigation, has managed to convict the state's most dedicated public official of a felony.
But three years later, the same judge who sentenced him reduced the charges to misdemeanors, saying it was "an easy call" and that Honig had "showed a degree of courage" in repaying his debt to society by devoting his life to working with inner-city students, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported at the time.
Honig stayed in education, although in a much more private way. He taught at the San Francisco State School of Education, and later established the Consortium on Reading and Excellence that trains teachers nationally in literacy and math skills.
Until last month, I had not talked to Honig in years, but he displays the same enthusiasm and energy that brought him three statewide electoral victories. He is now focused on the future. Despite the need for the state to dig itself out its budget morass, he believes education reform is still possible."It's not an either-or proposition," he said. "I think people will be surprised about how much we can get done."
UPDATE: On January 10, Bill Honig withdrew his nomination for the state board, and has not given an explanation for his withdrawal.
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