Educrat (education + bureaucrat)
“Educrat” (education/educator + bureaucrat) is a word that appears to have been coined by Florida Governor Claude R. Kirk in January 1967. The term is usually derogatory, used by those critical of education bureaucracy.
Wiktionary: educrat
Etymology
Blend of educator and bureaucrat
Noun
educrat (plural educrats)
1. (derogatory) An official or administrator in a school district.
Wikipedia: Claude R. Kirk, Jr.
Claude Roy Kirk, Jr. (born January 7, 1926) was the 36th Governor of the U.S. state of Florida. He was the first Republican to hold the office of governor since 1877.
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Political career
In 1960, he switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, heading the “Floridians for Nixon” campaign. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1964 against incumbent Democrat Spessard Holland and then ran for governor in 1966. The incumbent governor, W. Haydon Burns, who represented the conservative wing of the Democratic Party in Florida, was defeated in the Democratic primary by the more liberal Mayor of Miami Robert King High. Burns did not endorse High after his defeat and the division among Florida Democrats was a major factor in Kirk’s decisive victory over High. Upon taking the oath of office on January 3, 1967, he became the state’s first Republican governor in 90 years. During his term in office a new Florida Constitution went into effect in 1968. The governor was often at odds with both Democrats and his Republican colleagues in the legislature on issues such as growth and taxes. A statewide teachers’ strike in 1968 was a significant event during his term.
(Oxford English Dictionary)
educrat
[f. EDU(CATION + -CRAT.]
An educational administrator or theorist; one who forms or directs educational policy. (Usu. derog.)
1968 Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 20 Apr. 64/2 He [sc. C. R. Kirk, Governor of Florida] early exhibited..a remarkable talent for flamboyant invective (education leaders are referred to as ‘educrats’ or wielders of ‘blackboard power’).
1973 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 19 Dec. 7/2 By creating and then pushing the foolish Hall-Dennis Report, our educrats taught the people of Ontario to expect flashy results from fashionable illusions and limitless expenditure.
Google Books
Teacher’s Voice
Michigan Education Association
Volume 45
1967 (Google Books date may be incorrect—ed.)
Pg. 2:
The NEA is working to take control of teachers and local education away from tax-paying parents and to place them under their own socialistic beliefs, a group that Gov. Claude Kirk of Florida calls educrats.
Google Books
A man and his words:
The first book about Claude R. Kirk, Jr., Governor, State of Florida
By Claude R. Kirk
Tallahassee, FL: Executive Press
1968
Pg. ?:
“Whether it is confronting militant educrats or confronting Rap Brown in a stadium where he is attempting to incite a riot, Government must show its willingness and its ability to get out from behind the protective shield of news managers and move out of carpeted office to go to the people and meet them face to face, to tell them the facts—both good and bad—and to do what must be done to carry out its responsibilities.”
Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce
Jacksonville, Florida
January 23, 1967
10 March 1968, Los Angeles (CA) Times, “Strife Remains Despite End of Florida Strike” by Harry Bernstein, sec. B, pg. AA:
The states “educrats,” quietly arranging a back-to-work agreement, worked nut the fare-saving device of an additional $10 million for education,...
Google Books
The Collective Dilemma:
Negotiations in Education
By Patrick W Carlton and Harold I Goodwin
Worthington/Ohio: Jones
1969
Pg. 155:
... questioner will find himself aggressively cross-examined on a related but irrelevant question), and a remarkable talent for colorful invective (education leaders who are referred to as “educrats” or wielders of “blackboard power”).
Google Books
Crisis in Urban Schools:
A book of readings for the beginning urban teacher
Edited by Thomas E. Glass
New York, NY: MSS Information Corp,
1973
Pg. 188:
But the initiative was almost always from the bureaucrat or the educrat, rather than from the teachers themselves.
Google Books
If men were angels:
A view from the Senate
By James Lane Buckley
New York, NY: Putnam
1975
Pg. 106:
The “educrat” who becomes the head of a foundation after having served as an administrator at a prestigious college, and who is then tapped to be Assistant Secretary of a federal government department — this is an archetypical figure of our time.
New York (NY) Times
THE WAY WE LIVE NOW: 5-29-05: ON LANGUAGE; Blendwords
By William Safire
Published: May 29, 2005
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In 1968, Gov. Claude Kirk of Florida snipped the ‘‘edu-’’ from the front of ‘‘education’’ and married it to the last syllable of ‘‘bureaucrat’’ to form educrat, which still annoys school administrators.