MaryEllen Elia, an educator who rose from a reading teacher to the leader of a Florida school district that’s among the biggest in the nation, on Tuesday was named New York State’s new education commissioner.
Elia from 2005 until this year served as superintendent of Hillsborough County Public Schools, leading the district, including Tampa., Fla., and its surroundings.
The New York State Board of Regents at an impromptu meeting attended by five members through video conference unanimously approved the search committee’s recommendation to appoint Elia, who will begin work on July 6.
She will receive $250,000 including $136,000 for her role as commissioner of education and $114,000 as president of the University of the State of New York.
Elia will take the helm at a time when the Education Department faces widespread criticism regarding the implementation of the Common Core curriculum and state teacher assessments.
New York State Commissioner of Education John King Jr. last December resigned amid a groundswell of criticism from teachers, parents and principals, leaving the department without a commissioner. He took a position as an adviser to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, ending a tenure in New York that began in 2011.
New York State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch in December said the board would name a search committee and conduct a national search.
Tisch in a written statement issued after the selection said Elia took her district through many changes “with school leaders and teachers as partners.”
“Hillsborough County Public Schools is an example of how all sides can find common ground and together can achieve real reform,” she said of the district Elia led for a decade.
“I am very excited about working as a team for all of you,” Elia, a native of New York who went on to become Florida’s superintendent of the year in 2015, told the Board. “Returning to New York State is a wonderful thing for me.”
Members of the state’s opt out movement, critical of New York’s Common Core curriculum and an increased emphasis on state testing, however, expressed concern over the selection.
“Parents are outraged with today’s staged announcement of a corporate linked education reformer as state commissioner,” said Lisa Rudley, a member of New York State Allies for Public Education.
Rudley said despite more than half a million opt-outs and letters, she’s worried that the state’s course may not change dramatically, which could mean “backlash will continue to escalate.”
Supporters of charter schools, which some say can drain resources and students from traditional public schools, also praised her selection.
Jeremiah Kittredge, CEO of Families for Excellent Schools, an advocate for expanding charter schools, said 50,000 students in Hllsborough study “outside the district school system.”
“Commissioner Elia has shown that she values the role of high-quality charter schools and parent choice,” Kittredge said of the selection that came days after Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed $150 million in tax incentives for people going to private schools.
Although the Board selected Elia, search firm Isaacson, Miller compiled and short listed candidates for the six-person selection committee that unanimously recommended her.
The firm led another high-profile search that resulted in Janet Napolitano, former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and a former Arizona governor, taking the helm at the University of California in 2013.
In a brief greeting, Elia indicated that she was trained as and focuses on teachers. She identified herself as an “educator.” “I’ve been very involved in the support of teachers,” Elia continued. “Everything that happens in a classroom happens because of teachers.”
She graduated high school from Stella Niagara, a Catholic school in Lewiston, NY, and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Daeman College in Buffalo, a Master of Education from the University of Buffalo and a Master of Professional Studies from SUNY Buffalo.
She launched her career in education in 1970 as a social studies teacher in Buffalo’s Sweet Home Central School District and taught for 19 years before moving on to administrative positions.
She went on to work in Florida’s Hillsborough County district, with 206,000 students and 27,000 employees, including 15,000 teachers. It is the largest employer in that county, which is the size of Rhode Island.
The district, which includes Tampa and its surroundings, is also the eighth largest district in the nation with around 235 schools, including 27 traditional high schools, according to that district.
“She was a reading specialist when she first came down here,” Steve Hegarty, a Hillsborough spokesman, said of her role in that district. “She worked her way up.”
Elia went on to head curriculum and instruction and create specialized or “magnet” schools to encourage students to attend programs outside of their neighborhood.
The district in 2009 obtained a $100 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the biggest at that time given to a school district. “It was to improve the way we recruit, hire, place, support, evaluate and compensate teachers,” Hegarty said.
Critics of Common Core and what’s often described as excessive testing, to evaluate more than educate, have criticized Gates as a driving force behind that curriculum and an increase in testing that some see as infatuated with technology more than teaching.
Elia has no direct connection to the Foundation, but Isaacson, Miller has placed people from the Foundation in high-ranking positions in public education.
The University of California, Riverside, named Maria Anguiano vice chancellor for planning and budget. She had been deputy chief of staff for strategic planning and analysis at the University of California Office of the President and chief of staff and director of strategic initiatives in the office of UC’s Chief Financial Officer.
Before that, Anguiano served as a senior advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Post-Secondary Success Team. She earlier worked at Barclays Capital, formerly Lehman Brothers, in public finance investment banking and at Deloitte & Touche.
The University of California system itself has provided leaders for the Gates Foundation. Before becoming chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Susan Desmond-Hellmann served as the UC San Francisco chancellor from Aug. 3, 2009 until April 1, 2014.
Hillsborough, Hegarty said, used money from the Gates Foundation to provide support to new teachers by hiring 15 to 20 full-time staff to advise and train among other things.
“We put in place mentors. If I’m a new teacher, in my first or second year, I have a mentor whose full-time job is to help me get up to speed as a new teacher,” Hegarty said. “The mentors are in place to shorten that learning curve and support teachers.”
The district also shifted from teacher evaluations done by principals to its own formula. “If you got along with your principal, you got a great evaluation,” Hegarty said of earlier evaluations.
Evaluations now are 60 percent by peer evaluators: A math teacher is evaluated and observed, for instance, by a math teacher.“Their full-time job is to do evaluations,” Hegarty said. “They come in and visit my classroom. They evaluate me.”
The remaining 40 percent, Hegarty said, measures student achievement. “We use multiple measures. It’s not just the state test,” he said. “It’s over a three-year period.”
He added that the state test itself can vary, based on many factors. “The state test is subject to too many variables, involving things going on in the state capital,” he said. “They change the rules on a whim.”
The county has its own pre- and post- test exams and relies on students’ grades on tests given by teachers as well as final exams. Although Florida had used Pearson Education, it shifted to the American Institute for Research or AIR. “We changed the state test this year,” Hegarty said. “That was a roller coaster.”
Florida shifted to online testing this year, which resulted in a number of problems. “It takes a lot longer,” Hegarty continued, referring to the time period over which tests are administered. “We don’t have a computer for every kid.”
After a decade leading the district, Elia was voted out on Jan. 20 after the board, including many new members, approved buying out her contract two years early, citing concerns regarding special education and other issues.
“It got to be personality issues,” Hegarty said. “The superintendent serves at the pleasure of the board. A 10-year run is highly unusual with these high pressure jobs.”
She succeeds Elizabeth Berlin, who was named interim or acting commissioner, the highest ranking official, and the first woman to head the department after John King. Jr. left. She had worked at the state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, before joining the Education Department.
When David Steiner left the top position after less than two years, King, a deputy commissioner at the time, was appointed without a search. Steiner in 2009 took the helm, replacing Richard Paul Mills, who had served as commissioner of education since 1995.
Ken Wagner, a deputy commissioner who played a major role in developing new testing protocols, became the most high-profile official at the department involved in policy.
