Businessman, Principal Named to Education Panel
An Inglewood elementary school principal and a politically active Silicon Valley entrepreneur have been appointed by Gov. Gray Davis to fill vacancies on the California Board of Education.
Nancy Ichinaga, 69, has won national notice for the long record of achievement at Bennett / Kew Elementary School, where all of the students are poor and one-fourth are not fluent in English. Even so, the school achieved a ranking of 9 out of a possible 10 on the Academic Performance Index published by the state earlier this year.
Ichinaga said one of her first priorities as a board member will be to find ways to recruit top-notch college students into teaching.
Reed Hastings, 39, of Santa Cruz gained public notice when he proposed a ballot measure that would have expanded the number of charter schools in the state. He later dropped that effort in return for legislation that accomplished the same goal.
Hastings, who is chief executive officer of NetFlix.com, is a major financial backer of Proposition 26 on the March ballot. That proposition would make it easier for school districts to win passage of bond measures to raise money for school construction and repairs.
Hastings and Ichinaga served on a committee Davis created in the early days of his administration to advise him on education reform.
The appointments must be confirmed by the state Senate; one additional vacancy remains on the 11-member board.
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