Oregon's new education chief: 'Poor for now' won't be a problem for Rudy Crew

Susan Nielsen:

Rudy Crew's mom died when he was 2. His dad had plenty of reasons to stay in bed in the morning, as Crew put it, but he got up every day and worked hard to raise his children right.

"My father," Crew wrote in a 2007 book, "made sure I had a safe place to take risks, to learn independence, and eventually to believe that poor for now did not mean poor forever."

Now Crew is Oregon's first chief education officer, tapped by Gov. John Kitzhaber and formally hired last week to lead the state's education enterprise from preschool to college. This core tenet of Crew's belief system -- that poor for now doesn't mean poor forever -- drove him to the top of the national heap of K-12 superintendents. It also makes him a bracing choice to help Oregon shake off the poverty mentality that drags down education in this state.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 5, 2012 1:30 AM
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