Author: Haley Gray
Former Occidental College President Ted Mitchell has been nominated for the position of Undersecretary of Education, awaiting Senate confirmation.
After serving as president of the college for six years, Mitchell left in Fall 2005 semester to head NewSchools Venture Fund, a private non-profit that collects philanthropic funds to invest in innovation efforts to help children succeed in K-12 education.
“Some thought he was dynamic. Some thought he was ‘fun.’ Others thought that he was was cynical and manipulative,” Politics Professor Larry Caldwell, who has been teaching at the college since 1967, said via email. “Everyone who knew him knew that he was ambitious and driven to ‘higher positions’ beyond Oxy… He was chosen [to be the Occidental College president] with the clear knowledge that he would move on to other career goals after about five years.”
During his tenure as college president, Mitchell was actively involved in education reform debates throughout Los Angeles and the state of California. Mitchell also chaired the California State Board of Education, among other smaller but significant positions in public education. In 2011, Mitchell was relieved of his chairmanship when Jerry Brown became the governor.
“Brown is more to the left, and [Mitchell] is in the center somewhere. Some would argue that he jumps to the right when it comes to privatization,” Occidental Education Department Chair Ronald Solorzano said.
There does not seem to be much surprise amongst faculty that Mitchell has found himself in the national political arena with this nomination.
“His talents were quite clear – he had an exceptionally personable style in public. I am not surprised that he has landed in the Obama Administration and expect him to do well in the political arena,” Caldwell said.
For all the consensus on his ambition, Mitchell’s educational ideology is more divisive. Some are skeptical of the appointment due to Mitchell’s association with privatization in public education and lack of emphasis on teacher education. A supporter of the highly-contested Teach for America (TFA) program, which Solorzano describes as the antithesis of teacher training, Mitchell hosted Wendy Kopp, founder of TFA and chair of its board, and Barbara Bush, a proponent of the program, at Occidental.
“There are a number of folks out there who would have been a little more in-tuned perhaps into the progressive side of education, challenging the value-added models [models that tie teacher salary to student performance on state tests], challenging the explicitly corporate take over of public schools,” Solorzano said.
However, Solorazno acknowledges the positive influcences Mitchell could bring to the country’s education policies.
“We need an alternative voice, and I think [Mitchell] kind of provides that,” Solorzano said “Both sides of the ledger are kind of happy with him. Which is one of the values on the one hand that he had when he was here at Oxy … How it plays out now for these initiatives, well that’s where the rubber meets the road.”
This article has been archived, for more requests please contact us via the support system.
