Pennsylvania elected a Democrat as its new governor, Josh Shapiro, the former state attorney general. During his campaign against the Trumper candidate Doug Mastriano, Shapiro campaigned as a centrist Democrat and won handily. One worrisome detail is that Gov.-Elect Shapiro endorsed vouchers, despite their widespread failure and their affiliation with hardcore rightwingers. It is therefore somewhat reassuring that he selected an experienced education as the state superintendent. This article was republished by the Keystone Center for Charter Change of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.
Pa. is getting a new education secretary: Lower Merion superintendent Khalid Mumin
Inquirer by Kristen A. Graham, January 9, 2023
Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro has named Khalid Mumin, currently superintendent of the Lower Merion School District, as his education secretary. Mumin, a Philadelphia native, has led the Montgomery County district for a little over a year. He came to Lower Merion from Reading, where he was named Pennsylvania’s Superintendent of the Year in 2021.
“During the past 15 months, I have grown to love Lower Merion, our inspiring students, exemplary staff, committed families and community members; however, Gov.-elect Shapiro has offered me a unique and exciting opportunity to reshape educational policy and practices across the Commonwealth, so all Pennsylvania students can experience the level of educational excellence our students enjoy and that all students deserve,” Mumin said in a letter to the Lower Merion community. The Secretary of Education job, he said, “was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
Mumin is scheduled to be sworn in as Acting Secretary of Education on Jan. 17. “For over 25 years, I have served as a teacher, dean of students, principal, and school superintendent — and I know firsthand what it takes to move our education system forward,” Mumin said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the Gov.-Elect to fully fund our schools, make our students’ mental health a priority, and empower parents and guardians to ensure their children receive a quality education.”
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Though he currently runs one of the state’s best-funded school systems, Mumin has extensive experience in low-wealth districts, too. Prior to working in Lower Merion, Mumin was superintendent of Reading city schools, where he worked for six years. He also served as an administrator in Maryland.
We will keep a watchful eye on Governor Shapiro, as he chooses whether to fully find the state’s public schools or to waste money on vouchers to satisfy a campaign donor.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Some good news out of PA
Any and almost all (like 99.9999%) of adminimals have been implementing educational malpractices for the last 20 years or so. Hardly any, almost none (.00001%) have stood up and challenged those malpractices. I have no faith whatsoever in any adminimal’s ability to do the right thing by the children-NONE!
“. . . stood up, challenged and refused to implement those malpractices.
I work for Dr. Mumin currently. He is very intelligent, professional, and has strong interpersonal skills… but he will implement the good and the bad of ESSA. People really need to understand the law. ESSA and community schools are not all positive. The public deserves to be told the whole story.
He’s part of the problem, not part of a solution. Until those in power, i.e., the adminimals and the teachers refuse to implement harmful educational malpractices such as ESSA and the standards and testing malpractice regime, students with be educationally shortchanged and harmed.
How precious to know that Mumin take his salary over doing what’s right and proper by the students. His ilk, and damn near everyone in public education these days are part of that ilk, are unethical and immoral lily livered spineless humans in my view.
Can’t argue with you, Duane. There will be no saviors of public education, sadly. If people really understood that ESSA’s emphasis on community schools is simply another formula to create public-private partnerships (including Wall Street gambling on student outcomes), they might not support them. Charter schools were the first gravy train. Community schools are the current one. If only we could get an ed law attorney to publicly explain that the corporate set up of community schools is basically the same as charter schools. School boards are now being called Board of Directors.
Vouchers aren’t the only problem, it’s ESSA. There will not be anyone selected for these types of positions who isn’t on the wrong side of history.
“Pay for success” schemes are a way to privatize a public service by covert means. These are financial products that purport to serve public needs. Any time a program is presented as a public-private partnership, it is a way to transfer wealth from the working class to the wealthy while contributing to greater income disparity. ESSAs undermine public education in the same way that Medicare Advantage and ACO Reach undermine and privatize Medicare.
“…I know firsthand what it takes to move our education system forward,” Mumin said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the Gov.-Elect to fully fund our schools, make our students’ mental health a priority, and empower parents and guardians to ensure their children receive a quality education.”
Know firsthand about education: excellent.
Work with the centrist governor: satisfactory.
Make mental health a priority: satisfactory.
Empower parents: unsatisfactory.
“Empowering parents” means privatization. The better way, really the only way is to empower teachers and students with lower class sizes and more supporting resources.
Based solely on Dr Mumin’s statement, without knowing him, if I were to give this news an overall mark on a report card, it would be an ‘S’ for satisfactory: not that bad, not that good. Wear your smile, but keep your ears to the ground and your power dry, Pennsylvania.
leftcoastteacher – I hadn’t thought of that. I think you are right and should have made that connection. Empower parents = vouchers. It must be over for public education as we know it.
Don’t give up. He may have used the phrase “empowering parents” as a cliche.
Khalid Mumin grew up in Philadelphia and is a graduate of Olney High School. He completed his bachelor, master’s and doctoral degrees in Pennsylvania. Having served in both Reading and Lower Merion, he has experience leading both poor and affluent districts. His wife serves as an assistant superintendent of the beleaguered Chester Upland School District. All of these experiences should give him a clear picture of the many challenges of school districts in the Commonwealth. Gov. Shapiro is known for being a fighter, and let’s hope Dr. Mumin is one as well.
He won’t do a damn thing except continue the status quo of educational malpractices, albeit, perhaps with a nicer looking/sounding veneer.
I have Hope for Khalid and reading the comments makes me want to write an op-ed about the “imperative of democracy” in Education.” I served the School District of Philadelphia as a teacher, A.P. and principal for 34 years and have worked as an advocate for public education since my retirement in 2009. Khalim attended Olney H.S. which was one of our most challenging schools.
He must have been attending Olney at the same time that I was advocating for a change of the administrative culture of the School District. I explained the importance of changing the District from an autocratic culture to a collaborative, ultimately democratic cuture, if we are to create the Great American school for all of our schoolchildren.
In Pennsylvania, our Public Education Clause was based on Harace Mann’s principles of democracy in public education. That is why we have locally elected school boards in Pennsylvania, except for guess where — Philadelphia, the birthplace of our democracy.
Interestingly, I have a case before the Secretary of Education at this very moment wherein one of the legal issues is the right of the school community to “participatory due process” in the decision-making process of the school board and the District. A teacher at Constitution H.S. in Philadelphia was fired without due process because he advocated for his students and wanted to get his Covid-19 “surveillance tests” done through his own doctor and certified Covid-19 test provider rather than the incompetent company the District had hired.
The school Board never properly enacted any Covid-19 testing policy. We already have a PA Supreme Court decision holding that the state’s masking policy was void ab initio because it was never properly enacted through the mandatory public comment processes of democratic rule-making.
I will hammer home for Khalid the concept of “participatory due process” in my brief. It is my well studied legal opinion that charter schools are not public schools because they do not have school boards which are elected by the people of the district or the school.
Anyone who has their head out of the sand knows by now that charter schools and other grand schemes are all about and only about the privatization of the American schoolhouse – for the profit of a few.
Democracy matters!
Not good enough. Put an actual teacher in the position. Too many administrators haven’t seen the inside of a classroom in far too long.