Forgone Said Candidate to Head Statistics Center
Pascal D. Forgione, the superintendent of public instruction in Delaware, is apparently a leading candidate to take the helm of the Department of Education’s statistics branch.
Longtime Commissioner Emerson J. Elliott left the top post at the National Center for Education Statistics last June.
Mr. Forgione told the Wilmington News-Journal newspaper last month that he had been nominated by the education research community.
Mr. Forgione became a prominent figure in the national debate over educational standards and testing as the executive director of the National Education Goals Panel, a post he left to take the Delaware job in 1991. Before joining the goals panel, he served as the director of research, evaluation, and assessment for the Connecticut education department.
In other Education Department personnel news, Janice Jackson has been named the acting assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education. Ms. Jackson has served as deputy assistant secretary since June 1994, when she took a leave from the Milwaukee public schools, where she has been a teacher and administrator.
The former assistant secretary, Thomas W. Payzant, left the department at the end of September to become the superintendent of the Boston schools. It is not clear when a permanent successor will be named.
Also last month, Eugene E. Garcia resigned as the director of the office of bilingual education and minority-languages affairs. His deputy, Dang Pham, is now the acting director. Mr. Garcia will become the dean of the education school at the University of California at Berkeley next spring.
Ed-Flex
Ohio and Kansas have joined Oregon and Massachusetts as “Ed-Flex” states, a status that allows them to waive some federal regulations for school districts.
Ohio, however, has been granted broader authority and will be able to waive federal regulations on a statewide basis.
Congress gave the Department of Education the power to grant Ed-Flex status to six states in an effort to test states’ use of greater flexibility. Officials said they have no imminent plans to designate the remaining two states.
