Here’s an interesting development down at the Ed Center: CMS chief Peter Gorman has hired a former Republican challenger to Rep. Barney Frank to be Gorman’s “chief accountability officer.” Jonathan P. Raymond is coming from the Commonwealth Corporation, a Massachusetts job-training and education outfit.jp

A snip of that Frank-Raymond 1996 campaign:

Mr. Raymond has called Rep. Frank a proponent of a discredited tax-and-spend mentality in Washington, and said he will bring “new ideas and a fresh way of looking at things” to Capital Hill.
“Rep. Frank has been for more government, and more government requires more money,” said Mr. Raymond. …

Mr. Raymond has supported the proposed 15 percent tax cut offered by Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole as a move that would create new revenue streams and encourage private investment. He said he also will work to trim government spending and reduce the size and scope of government regulation.

He said he does favor bringing some troops home, but without being specific “wants to take a look at all spending,” such as education, agriculture, energy and transportation.

As an incentive to business, he also would support measures to encourage local government and the state to cut business taxes, such as creating tax-free business zones.

“Companies don’t pay taxes,” he said. “They simply collect them and pass them along to their customers.”

Moreover, Raymond just completed a Broad Center for the Management of School Systems program for school system superintendents. The Los Angeles-based Broad Superintendents Academy is regarded as ground-zero for superintendent and top exec training for public school officials, especially those candidates coming from a “non-traditional” background and destined for an urban environment.

But is Raymond ready for CMS? Well, he seems to have talked a good game about the need for market-based incentives and solutions to education problems — and that certainly frames what he will be asked to do at CMS. Raymond will have to punish bad schools and teachers and reward the good ones for “accountability” to have any meaning.

Of course, a big part of that is improving the discipline and security at CMS. This is where the recent tug of war between Gorman and CMS security chief Ralph Taylor comes in. In past years, Taylor has defaulted to keeping kids enrolled in CMS no matter what — multiple felony convictions even. Gorman has pushed on that front, mindful that good teachers will not stay in unsafe schools.

Now Raymond will be charged with coming along behind and holding schools to real standards — one assumes.

Still, the needed flip-side to hiring his own people is Gorman cutting loose the stacks of dead-wood at the Ed Center. And by dead-wood I don’t mean Barney Frank after a few too many cocktails.