Former Oakland California school superintendent Anthony “Tony” Smith has been selected as the new Illinois Superintendent of Education.
The Illinois State Board of Education made the change unanimously at Wednesday’s meeting, replacing current Superintendent Christopher Koch, effective May 1.
Koch, whose contract expired earlier this year, remained on the job at the request of the state board. One of the longest serving state superintendents in the nation, he has been in the post since December 2006 and has overseen changes to testing and teacher evaluations.
Smith is currently director of the nonprofit W. Clement and Jesse V. Stone Foundation in Oak Park. He served as superintended of Emeryville, Calif., schools for three years and deputy superintendent in San Francisco for 18 months before moving to Oakland in 2009.
He joined the Stone Foundation in June 2013 and was elected to the Chicago Public Education Fund’s Board of Directors in September 2014.
Board Chairman James Meeks calls Smith a "visionary" who will "move the needle" on education reform. Board members say Smith was the sole candidate for the job recommended by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.
“The Board selected Tony Smith for his proven track record of accomplishment and leadership in education,” said Meeks. “We know that Dr. Smith will move forward to improve and expand on the agency’s initiatives to improve teaching and learning on behalf of the more than 2 million kindergarten through 12th-graders in Illinois public schools.”
Smith did not start out to be an educator, and there are no records indicating that he ever received teaching or school administrative credentials, according to the Chicago Tribune. He
"The biggest resentment we had was that he was not a classroom teacher, and he had no (administrative) credential,” Oakland Education Association president Trish Gorham told the Tribune. “The credential requirement was waived" by the Oakland school board, she said.
The board also approved an $89,000 severance package for Koch.