




Kilduff: That sounds like a very valid outsider's critique, but how ... do you get this done inside a very elaborate system?

De Geus: You cannot. My point is, if Gavin is going to be the CEO of the state, he has to appoint a CEO of education that is empowered (by) a fundamental redesign of the architecture.

Ken McNeely, California president, AT&T: I absolutely agree. As a large employer in the state, we're simply not able to get the qualified applicants that we need. I think we've lost a generation. I think we're ready for a complete overhaul, and I think something has to happen, or businesses are going to go where they can find the talent that they need; and, unfortunately, that may not be in the state of California. It may not be in the United States.

Ellen Moir, executive director, UC Santa Cruz New Teacher Center: Someone has to "own" public education in this state and be aggressive about it. Our school system, with a school board ... are often lovely, smart people, but dysfunctional. They don't have the impetus and the drive and the focus and the control and the power to transform what's going on in (school) districts.

And finally, I think, we need to do a much better job of recruiting the best teachers.

Kilduff: What practical steps do you think need to be taken to have these changes come about?

Moir: I'm not sure how to tackle the school board situation. I think it definitely needs to be thought of. We have to look at how you measure teacher effectiveness. It has to be beyond just test scores.

Kilduff: UC, CSU, community colleges - they seem to be getting whacked every year. What would ... you do to re-supply whatever these higher-ed institutions need, to get them back on their feet?

Newsom: You simply don't make those cuts in higher education. It's a question of what you value, and the next governor needs to value higher education more substantively, not just rhetorically.

Kilduff: How do you pay for a system that seems to need a lot more dough to operate ... even at a modest level?

De Geus: I think you can't. There is not enough money right now. Therefore, efficiency is what's going to be the driver. I think it's a good place to start with higher education, because it's the shortest pipeline between doing something and having a workforce that actually impacts things.

Moir: I want to comment on the tragedy that we see in this state right now. You have young people preparing for college, and they are getting there with fewer courses, fewer professors, and, you know, faculty that are discouraged because of furlough days and whatnot. We have to prioritize education in this state.

Kilduff: How do you deal with union resistance to change - reform preventing tenure, the seniority systems, mobility, offering higher pay to science and math teachers?

Moir: I do not see the unions as the obstacle. I think that the ... biggest obstacle is that we haven't imagined together how to transform our systems. We have to all be at the table to build out the kind of new structures that we want. I personally think that education needs to dramatically overhaul its performance-management plan. We need to build solid methods for evaluating teachers and principals and superintendents simultaneously. We need to look carefully at what it means to get tenure.

Kilduff: What qualities do you want to see in a graduating student who's coming to your office?

McNeely: What we've not really talked about is, we ... still train our kids like we're in the 1950s, the 1960s, and we live in ... an era now of Facebook and (Twitter) and texting and the kids are being bombarded with information technology from all sides. Yet we haven't evolved - the educational system hasn't evolved - to really challenge those kids, and harness that energy, and that is exactly the kind of energy and the kind of creativity that I think, as large businesses, we're going to need for the future. The jobs that our students today will be applying for don't even exist. So being able to create a student that's going to be able to excel in that environment really means imbuing a sense of creativity, of energy, and a perspective that doesn't exist, I think, in today's classroom.