Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s choice to become California’s next secretary of education is drawing plaudits and barbs.
The Republican governor announced April 29 that Alan D. Bersin, the outgoing chief of the 140,000-student San Diego schools, will succeed Richard J. Riordan in the Cabinet-level post.
“Alan is the right person at the right time,” said Jim Lanich, the president of the California Business for Education Excellence, a coalition of business groups that advocates for better schools.
But the California Teachers Association, the state’s main teachers union, has a different take on Mr. Bersin. “The governor chose someone who has no track record of building consensus or working with parents and teachers to improve public schools,” the union’s president, Barbara E. Kerr, said in a written statement.
