He said, 'We've been trying to reform education for 50 years. I don't know how many professional people have come in saying we need to make education run more like business. He enrolled in Stanford's master's program in education in fall 1997. He lasted a semester, he says, before deciding to devote his time to trying to raise the number of allowable state charter schools. It wasn't so much about whether we should use blue chalk instead of white chalk, but it was about implementing the ideas.
Every city has a couple of great pilot programs, but they never get spread around.
On the advice of former California gubernatorial candidate Al Checchi, Hastings met with the teachers union to address their concerns about charter schools, exchanging their support on raising the cap on charter schools for his support in guaranteeing the schools collective bargaining rights. The bill that raised the number of allowable charter schools received overwhelming bipartisan support. It's a bipartisan issue. Hastings admits that he doesn't have all the answers for education. But he does talk bluntly about what makes him qualified to lead education reform.