Pick for education chief favors school choice

Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell today will name Gerard Robinson, an advocate for charter schools and school choice, as secretary of education.

Robinson is president of the Atlanta-based Black Alliance for Educational Options.

A spokesman for McDonnell would not confirm the choice yesterday but did not dispute it. McDonnell scheduled a news conference for today to announce his choice for secretary of education and agency heads.

When running for governor, McDonnell made school choice and increasing the number of charter schools a major part of his education platform. He noted that it is an issue on which he and President Barack Obama agree.

Virginia has one of the lowest numbers of charter schools in the nation — three, with a fourth set to open in South Richmond this summer.

Local school boards generally have been opposed to the creation of charter schools. McDonnell has said he wants to take the authorizing power out of the hands of local school boards.

The education secretary presides over K-12 and higher education in Virginia, which accounts for almost 45 percent of the general-fund budget.

Schools at both levels face pressure in the General Assembly session that starts tomorrow. McDonnell and lawmakers are trying to close a projected $4.2 billion gap in the budget for 2010-12.

Robinson leads a national nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to support parental choice to empower families and to increase educational options for black children.

Robley Jones, a lobbyist for the Virginia Education Association, which generally is not supportive of charter schools, said he does not know of Robinson.

"It does sound like he has an agenda," he added.

Writing in the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 2008, Robinson rebutted an opponent's suggestion that school vouchers are "a war against public schools."

"The war parents are fighting to win is against low expectations inside classrooms, whether public or private," he wrote. "And for far too long, their children have been front-line casualties in adult games."

He continued:

"How can you tell if a public school is a failure? You measure it by the number of parents who remain in a school — even if they are given the option to enroll their children into another public or private school of choice."

Robinson, a native of Los Angeles, has a bachelor's degree from Howard University, a master of education degree from Harvard University, and is studying for a doctorate from the University of Virginia.

Before he joined the Black Alliance for Educational Options, he was a senior research associate for a school-choice demonstration project at the University of Arkansas. Before that, he was a senior fellow at the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at Marquette University.

Tyler Whitley is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.