173-2-793
So who made this decision? Or, as John Syer, a professor at California State University, puts it sardonically: Who might be accountable for the bad schools? Is it local school boards, or the state board, or the education secretary, or the superintendent of public instruction, or the governor, or somebody else?
Start with the governor, who is elected, as in all 50 states. He appoints a secretary of education, a member of his cabinet. Oddly, however, that secretary (and thus the governor) does not have much power in this area. For the state’s education department is headed by a superintendent of public instruction, who is directly elected and thus answers only to voters, not to the governor. He in turn chairs a state board of education (the other members of which are again appointed by the governor).
Californians, in fact, insist on this sort of confusion in their entire executive branch. Thus they directly elect eight statewide officers (governor, lieutenant governor, attorney-general, secretary of state, controller, treasurer, superintendent and insurance commissioner). Often these officers are at war with one another. For the two decades starting in Jerry Brown’s second term, and again during most of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure, the governor and his lieutenant even belonged to different parties.
There is a broad consensus that California’s public schools are not what they could be, nor what they used to be. In this respect California is again unusual. Only 14 states separately elect a superintendent of public instruction, 12 a controller and ten an insurance commissioner. If democracy is about holding elections, the Californian mantra is: the more the merrier. This is especially true for education.

A. 어휘
sardonically 냉소적으로. accountable 책임이 있는.
local school boards 지역교육위원회. education secretary 교육부장관.
superintendent 관리자, 감독자, 장관. public instruction 공교육.
superintendent of public instruction 敎育監(교육감).
executive branch 집행기관. lieutenant governor 副知事(부지사).
attorney-general 검찰총장. secretary of state 國務長官(국무장관).
controller 감사관. treasurer 회계담당관. insurance commissioner 보험감독관.
tenure 任期(임기). mantra 呪文(주문), 眞言(진언).