1/3 of all students get free preschool paid by the school district and/or state like any other grade level. 2/3 of the students do not. This is the "TK" program. Ironically, it is the OLDEST kids at any grade level who will have had the extra benefit of free TK paid by the taxpayers.

Is this weird or what?

How is the county Office of Education funded and how is the money spent or squandered? For starters: tell us how much the Superintendent is paid.

The County Office of Education (COE) is governed by the "county school board" mentioned. You can find how much the COE Superintendent is paid (including benefits) through a number of good-government sites and the CA State Controller's Office. In My Opinion, he is paid appropriately, for doing a reasonable job. If he is able to keep his job/want his job for 5 years, both he and the Co. Board Of Education will have been taking care of their joint responsibilities - beter than any COE leadership in the last dozen years.

I personally support the concept of Public charter schools, and I think Grace Ma has helped vastly increase the oversight ability and responsibility of the COE. IMO - it had previously been a complete unprofessional mess.

@preschool I'd agree that TK selection and funding (controlled by the State) is weird. It is changing in the near future, to what apparently you(?) and I would consider a more 'reasonable' policy - more PK (Pre-Kindergarten) based on economic.& language needs of the families, discontinue TK.

More interesting (to politicos) - there might possibly be a large amount of Charter School PAC single-interest money that comes in the form of 'mailers'. I wouldn't personally 'blame,' Ma for that.

SN is a Trustee of a Santa Clara County school district, he has neither received nor ever given Ma an 'office holders' political endorsement

name spelling etc. I wold debate the politico-linguistic fine point with the reporter if the North County seat on the CBE is "Mah's seat." Think this 'seat' belongs to The People, and Grace is just 'holding the seat' for us. :)

I will be voting against Grace Mah. I have watched her in action over the years. Her obvious favoritism toward charter schools at the expense of public schools is a huge strike against her.

Oh, boo hoo. Grace Mah was going to start a Charter School in Palo Alto but she did not. She's a great board member. She's much better than Joan Strong would have been. She's very thoughtful and adheres to the law as advised by the county board's lawyers.

Public Schools (variant) = Public Charter Schools Of course, we all realize in this public comment area that charter schools in California ARE Public Schools. There are not the East Cost variant of public vouchers for private schools, or the very weird NY law allowing strict religious organizations to run their own 'public' schools with public money.

I like our California system - when it has good to excellent oversight. I think Grace Mah (usually) brings that level of oversight to Santa Clara County.

SN is a Member of the MVWSD Governing board, this is his private opinion