The appointment goes to Margaret Fortune, a former Assistant Education Secretary during the Gray Davis Administration who helped lead a controversial effort to convert Sacramento High School into a charter academy.
Fortune says she’ll encourage parents to approach the State Board of Education and seek charter status for their children’s failing schools.

Margaret Fortune’s appointment came on the same day that Governor Schwarzenegger brokered a deal in Washington greatly reducing the number of California school districts that may be listed by the federal government as failing under the No Child Left Behind Act.  The agreement also states there will be no loss of federal funding as had originally been threatened.