Biz and Ed Together Again

By Richard del Rio, Pacific Beach

E-MAIL STORY

Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 | Is it just me or does Emily Alpert's note on a local group of businesspeople and civic leaders at University of San Diego sound like deja vu all over again? When the Chamber of Commerce's Business Roundtable lobbied for hiring former School Superintendent Alan Bersin in 1998, the fix was in. The SDUSD School Board announced that they wanted a "non-educator," knowing all along that Alan Bersin was their man.

Now we have another private group of self-described leaders holding a private meeting to discuss issues of concern for the district. The invitation cites four main areas of concern including transparency and community involvement. Without any irony intended the meeting is closed to the public. If I were this group's English teacher, their invitation to the event would be penalized for not defending the claim.

5 Comments so far on this story...

The next time the district hires a non-educator as its super, I'm going to apply for the head of the American Bar Association, American Medical Assocation, and the Deputy Sheriff's Association. By their logic, I'm eminently qualified for all three positions.

Posted by Poppa | reply to this comment
October 31, 2009 10:10 am

San Diego City schools process of electing school board members is vulnerable to hostile takeovers by special interests! First we had the business takeover after the Pendlenton strike that lead to Bersin, and we had the recent union takeover that lead to the departure of Grier. Until we change to a process that elect people who have been active in their school cluster communities in a single election that can't be dominated by big money we will have thes unstable hostile takeovers! I stil believe the district needs to be redesigned into smaller autonomous districts with local controll!

Posted by John de Beck | reply to this comment
October 31, 2009 5:09 pm

John de Beck is right on. Devolving control to smaller districts would provide much greater local say over schools. When it costs at least $100k to be considered a viable candidate for our school board and only organized business and union interests are willing to contribute that kind of cash, it's inevitable that the board will be captured. Students, teachers, and our city as a whole end up paying the price for that support. Having smaller districts would at least give reformers a chance. With the current SDUSD configuration it seems the status quo may never change.

Posted by Fred Williams | reply to this comment
November 1, 2009 7:48 pm

I too support breaking up the district. I remember when Alan Bersin tried to tell me that at 140,000 students SDUSD was the perfect size! It provided economies of scale, he noted. Well, I thought, how many school districts have been founded with this number in mind? None of course--all of America's large school districts are accidents of urban growth and geography. SDUSD is too large by a factor or 6 or 7. Public education is the one government service that must have a local focus of serving kids and families in a supportive community. While the danger of this is parochialism and segregation. Today that is not the main issue. Our watchword should be small, personal and community-based education that promotes trust between schools, families and taxpayers. As far as I can tell the only ones who like big are the top-level administrators and the unions.

Posted by Richard del Rio | reply to this comment
November 3, 2009 4:15 pm

Apropos of Rich del Rio's specualtion about "deja vu all over again," I wish Emily Alpert at the voice would tell us more about Scott Himelstein, convener of the recent closed-to-press private gathering of business types at the University of San Diego. Why wouldn't the voice cover him? And if the voice won't do it, how about publishing my letter about Scott's history, instead of deep-sixing it?

Posted by Frances O'Neill Zimmerman | reply to this comment
November 8, 2009 5:44 pm

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