this is from Terry O'Connell Novick who worked for the MA Association of School Committees and is on the Worcester School board (our second largest city). Tracy is one of the only experts in MA on the school budgets....
"
Hey, speaking of Penny Schwinn
...who is making news this morning largely because the President-elect didn't get her name right in his online announcement.
Schwinn was most recently the Commissioner of Education in Tennessee, but there's a local connection insofar as she was one of the three finalists for K-12 commissioner here in Massachusetts in 2018, when Jeff Riley was hired.
You can read my notes from her interview here, and my notes on her in general here. I'd suggest paying attention to that whole episode where she left a board to take a charter school job.
Schwinn resigned as education commissioner in TN in June 2023 to take a job with the University of Florida (remotely) under Ben Sasse, who resigned last July after 17 months in that position. During his tenure:
Since Sasse’s resignation, he has since faced bipartisan scrutiny after The Alligator first reported Monday that he had tripled his office’s spending — a majority of which was for lucrative consulting contracts and high-paid, remote positions for GOP allies.
He spent $17.3 million in his first year in office. The figure was far higher than the $5.6 million in spending during the final year of the previous president, Kent Fuchs, who has agreed to return as interim president through 2025.
Schwinn was not retained under the new leadership; the Gainsville Sun reported:
Schwinn, a Republican, previously served as Tennessee's education commissioner and was hired by UF in September 2023 to carry out a series of initiatives throughout Florida’s K-12 schools. Schwinn, who was paid an annual salary of $367,500, worked remotely from Tennessee during her brief stint at UF.
Perhaps her most controversial initiative came to the forefront in March when she recommended that UF's P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School, which has a history of maintaining a student population that's representative of Florida's racial and income demographics, move to a selective admissions process. The idea behind the proposal was to help propel the K-12 school, specifically the high school, into the top 10 in the state.
Schwinn's last day at the university was July 31. She will be paid a lump sum of $91,875.
I would imagine we'll be seeing more articles scrutinizing her in the education press in the coming days.
this is from Terry O'Connell Novick who worked for the MA Association of School Committees and is on the Worcester School board (our second largest city). Tracy is one of the only experts in MA on the school budgets....
"
Hey, speaking of Penny Schwinn
...who is making news this morning largely because the President-elect didn't get her name right in his online announcement.
Schwinn was most recently the Commissioner of Education in Tennessee, but there's a local connection insofar as she was one of the three finalists for K-12 commissioner here in Massachusetts in 2018, when Jeff Riley was hired.
You can read my notes from her interview here, and my notes on her in general here. I'd suggest paying attention to that whole episode where she left a board to take a charter school job.
Schwinn resigned as education commissioner in TN in June 2023 to take a job with the University of Florida (remotely) under Ben Sasse, who resigned last July after 17 months in that position. During his tenure:
Since Sasse’s resignation, he has since faced bipartisan scrutiny after The Alligator first reported Monday that he had tripled his office’s spending — a majority of which was for lucrative consulting contracts and high-paid, remote positions for GOP allies.
He spent $17.3 million in his first year in office. The figure was far higher than the $5.6 million in spending during the final year of the previous president, Kent Fuchs, who has agreed to return as interim president through 2025.
Schwinn was not retained under the new leadership; the Gainsville Sun reported:
Schwinn, a Republican, previously served as Tennessee's education commissioner and was hired by UF in September 2023 to carry out a series of initiatives throughout Florida’s K-12 schools. Schwinn, who was paid an annual salary of $367,500, worked remotely from Tennessee during her brief stint at UF.
Perhaps her most controversial initiative came to the forefront in March when she recommended that UF's P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School, which has a history of maintaining a student population that's representative of Florida's racial and income demographics, move to a selective admissions process. The idea behind the proposal was to help propel the K-12 school, specifically the high school, into the top 10 in the state.
Schwinn's last day at the university was July 31. She will be paid a lump sum of $91,875.
I would imagine we'll be seeing more articles scrutinizing her in the education press in the coming days.