I'd like you to know that this is personal space – not a school district website. It reflects my views which are often embargoed in the letters column and op-ed page of our only daily newspaper – which shall remain nameless, as all political opponents should be.

This website was started during the very expensive election campaign of year 2000, and it continues to be an important way for me to offer insights into current issues affecting the public education of 143,000 San Diego children. (This figure may be high, as I am told that our student enrollment is declining. I have wondered how that can be possible in a booming city like San Diego. Of course, I wonder if we're losing kids because of the Blueprint.)

May 30, 2002

You can close a school with three Board of Education votes, but it takes four Board votes to really get rid of a school site via sale, development or long-term lease.

Questions about the uses of school real estate played a role in the notorious Board election of 2000 when nearly a million dollars was spent unsuccessfully by business and development interests to unseat me in favor of a real estate lawyer who was a friend of the Superintendent.

Earlier this year, Board members John deBeck and I voted to keep Old Town's well-located Fremont Elementary School open, but Bersin's Board troika of Ron Ottinger, Ed Lopez and Sue Braun voted 3 to 2 to support Bersin's recommendation to close Fremont, ostensibly on grounds of declining neighborhood enrollment.

I believe Fremont School should have remained open and accommodated children from other over-crowded places around the city. As it is, "overflow" kids are now bussed much farther afield to places like Clairemont and University City.

So for now say goodbye to Fremont Elementary in Old Town, founded there in 1909. But vote wisely in the November General Election if you believe, as I do, that precious and irreplaceable school real estate should be retained for future generations of San Diego public school students rather than sold, developed or tied up in long-term leases.

Fremont's prime location adjacent to expanding commercial Old Town real estate is widely believed to be the reason the Superintendent shut the school's doors to explore other lucrative uses for that property. A Union-Tribune story (6/1/02) about Fremont's farewell reunion ceremonies quoted an 82-year-old alumna of the school who commented succinctly about the district's motives, "They want the money."

For the time being, the Fremont site has been given a one-year extension, reconfigured as a single-grade middle school media-theme magnet – which permitted a representative from the Superintendent's 23-person public relations staff to rebut the Union-Tribune charge and say, "the structure will remain an educational facility."

The transitional year for Fremont will get the Superintendent past the November 5, 2000, General Election, after which he hopes to have a fourth rubber-stamp Board member. Two Board seats are up for that election. If that should happen, it will give Bersin and his developer supporters a long-sought free hand on school district real estate matters. (At one point in the past, the Superintendent had a trio of private developer advisors – his own late father-in-law as well as two others.)

Anyway, back to the poignant farewell. Adults wept on Thursday morning, May 30, as they joined children and teachers in a final assembly and communal sing in the small balloon-filled auditorium at the soon-to-be-shuttered Old Town landmark. Every grade from kindergarten through fifth sang a song on the stage. Board members de Beck and I were given remembrances of the school – vials of Fremont earth mixed with sparkles representing all the good times – and Principal Joellen Harrison read from a book about the school's beginning in 1909 and ending in 2002 and all the years in between. School Police Officer Jesus Montana stood in his blue uniform at the back of the room. At the end, we all sang patriotic songs including the powerful "Battle Hymn of the Republic." We admired the children's special occasion attire, their model behavior and their lovely performances. Everyone shook hands, thanked one another and then we said goodbye.

1) On April 9 the Superintendent received another four-year contract, much sweeter than the previous one, compliments of his three-person Board majority. Mr. deBeck and I voted no.

2) On April 18 the six-figure salaries of the Superintendent and his 12-person executive committee were published in the Reader's City Lights column by Matt Potter. Their combined salaries amount to more than $2.2 million per year.

3) On April 23 the Superintendent announced a $33 million budget deficit, but he reminded us to be glad because, for the first time in history, the academic program would not be cut. Translated, that means the expensive, unmodified and unsuccessful "Blueprint for Student Success" will continue unabated.

4) On April 23 the Board voted an austerity measure to eliminate the jobs of 257 line workers - 200 of whom work with special needs and other children at schools. Look for the Superintendent to say these folks will be "retrained, reassigned and retired." I say something else and I voted no.

5) On April 30, the Superintendent announced there will be no general salary increases for 2002-2003. In an email, he wrote: "In recognition that we are all in this together, I am asking the board... to forego paying any portion of my incentive compensation (up to $25,000) for 2002, which would have been payable this summer. In addition, I will not receive another salary increase until each of us does."

I can also report that Anschluss continues at the School District. For those who missed out on social studies because the Blueprint's narrow focus has eliminated many history and government classes, Anschluss was the first expansionist gesture of Nazi Germany when it annexed Austria – with Austria's compliance – in 1938, without democratic or constitutional precedent. It was a defining historic moment presaging the disaster that befell Europe in World War II.

(You should know that Mr. Ottinger has taken exception to my using this word, Anschluss, and he has implied that I use it to offend his religious sensibilities. He claims to have launched an "investigation" into my use of this very negative word, and the negative words of other people as well, and he has actually claimed in public that I am using "racist overtones.")

The last time I checked, I am still free to disagree. Perhaps I need to spell it out. I use the word Anschluss to emphasize that I believe a similar present-day disaster is happening in our San Diego public schools, without the public's participation or consent.

In 1998 there was a takeover of this school district in collusion with downtown business and the Chamber of Commerce, and it was made possible by a three-person majority of the Board of Education. They delivered to us a non-educator Superintendent and a Chancellor whose expertise is K-8 literacy. Both of these gentlemen scorn the notion of building on the inherited educational foundation as "incrementalism." They "celebrate," promote and reward themselves at the expense of our community's students, families and experienced educators and they squander taxpayers' money on unproven programs they call "reform."

Over four years they have collaborated with no one to make sure reform has legs. They have drastically cut the comprehensive curriculum to a literacy-and-maybe-math focus and they have tried to sell the community on the notion that "training" is better than true education. They criticize and write people up; they reorganize and restructure and reassign and streamline. The question is: to what end?

To enhance their public image, they have engaged a public relations staff of 22 people. They hire outside consultants and they lavish millions annually on a Blueprint that keeps kids of color segregated into no-exit three-hour remedial reading stalags (For your information, Mr.Ottinger has put "stalag" on his forbidden list, too. If he ever visited our Genre Studies classes and talked to the kids, he would understand why I use that word.)

Finally, the elected Board majority has allowed the Board to become marginalized by permitting its fiscal responsibilities to be scattered to unaccountable private bodies such as the Foundation for Improvement in Math and Science Education (FIMSE), the San Diego Foundation, the University of San Diego (USD), and San Diego State University Foundation.

The Board majority has surrendered the Board's policy role to the Superintendent. The Board's reputation has been diminished by dissension and its calls for mayoral takeover and for help from psychologists and parliamentarians.

The Board majority has labeled dissent as incivility; due diligence as dysfunction; and most recently, trenchant expression is called racism.

Personally, I will not be moved. There are parallels between a dark time in world history and what has been happening in this public school district at the hands of this Superintendent, his Chancellor and his Board majority. Anschluss. Stalags. Arrogance. Spin. Self aggrandizement. Intimidation. Selling out our children. Selling out our employees. Selling out our community.

• WSJ Calls Me "Enamored of Nazi Allusions"
  On April 30 the ultra-conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal lauded San Diego Superintendent of Schools, calling him "San Diego Charger" in the headline. (I guess in NYC they don't know what losers our Chargers have been.) Anyway, they name me as a nay-sayer who is "enamored of Nazi allusions." I am beginning to wonder: should I be worried that they are going after me like this?
  
  No one at the WSJ ever bothered to run a news story on the San Diego "reforms," and no one there ever asked me about my views, but the language I have used to describe what's going on in our city schools is meant to illustrate the dire straits our children and teachers are in, thanks to Mr. Bersin and his friends.
  
  Such notoriety for a La Jolla matron, schoolmarm and trustee marks a new escalation of offensive and suggestive comment that has been made over the last three weeks by the administration's water-boy, Board President Ron Ottinger. Ottinger lately has implied that his and Bersin's opponents – foremost among them yours truly – are anti-Semitic. Never mind that my beloved late husband and his entire family are Jewish. Logic is not Ottinger and Bersin's forte: innuendo is.
  
  Four times in the last month Ottinger has declared my (and others') views and language objectionable to him "as a person," "as an American," and "as a Jew." On April 24 he issued a detailed press release on this subject. Local press ran a story and an editorial on May 4 and 5, based on the line Ottinger has been peddling, and following the Wall Street Journal editorial from April 30.
  
  This scurrilous use of religion at a time of world crisis is, in fact, cover-up for a failing school administration that is propped up by a narrow Board majority of one vote. Bersin, Ottinger, et al, are frightened that popular dissatisfaction with this regime may shift the balance of power after the November General Election.
  
  The truth about San Diego Unified is that we have flat or falling test scores; a widening achievement gap between children of color and their Anglo and Asian counterparts; an outrageously expensive new contract just awarded the Superintendent by a 3-2 Board vote; a Superintendent's executive committee with $2.2 million in annual salaries while the School District has a $33 million deficit; and last week, in lip service to fiscal austerity, we fired more than 200 employees who work with special education children.
  
  When you are desperate, you say Board Member Zimmerman "is enamored of Nazi allusions." People who know me know better.
  
  
• Grants with Strings and No Board Oversight
  A new grant for $4.2 million has been received from the BROAD Foundation, for principal training at the University of San Diego (USD). The money is administered by USD, not the Board of Education or the San Diego Unified School District. The grant also carries a stipulation to maintain Alan Bersin as Superintendent.
  
  $30 million in grants with unprecedented explicit strings to maintain the leadership of Superintendent Alan Bersin and Chancellor Anthony Alvarado were approved 3-2 by the Board of Education. This money came from the Gates Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation and Atlantic Philanthropies – an outfit whose principal donor is a man named Charles Feeney who long maintained anonymity while giving money to Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army. (More social studies: The IRA is an organization of former terrorists.)
  
  None of the $30 million will be subject to fiscal oversight by the elected Board of Education. Rather, it will be managed by rich friends of the Superintendent who created their own organization called the Foundation for Improvement of Math and Science Education (FIMSE.) Mr. Bersin is a member of that organization's board.
   
• Magnet Schools Robbed
  Magnet funds were slated to be taken from five magnet schools located in the poorest neighborhoods of this city, but public uproar from Valencia Park Elementary, a performing arts magnet that sends kids to the School of Creative and Performing Arts, caused the money to be "restored." That is to say, dollars will not be taken away in bags by trucks from the sites, but the likelihood of it being spent on magnet focus rather than "Blueprint strategies" is virtually nil. So a cosmetic change of language gets the same result – more bucks for the insatiable Blueprint. The vote for this ill-disguised robbery was 3-2.
   
• Ethics Code Deep-Sixed
  I researched and proposed a simple honor-system ethics code for Board members, but it was voted down 3-2 after one postponement and two readings on the basis of Mr. Lopez's characterization, "There's nothing new here." There was plenty new, of course, especially in the wake of Mrs. Braun's scandalous e-mail misuse last Fall. Mainly, provisions of this first-ever ethics code were to be contained in one document that would be read, understood and signed by all present and future Board members.
  
  Among its nine points, the code covered such things as abiding by rules to reside for the entire term in the district from which one is elected; abiding by the open meeting /no secret deals Brown Act; abiding by the district's policy concerning proper use of internet and e-mail; holding at the District Legal Office for ease of public access all information about Board members' economic interests as well as their political campaign contributions.
   
• $10,000 Consultant for Superintendent Contract
  The Superintendent, who makes $165,000 a year plus benefits and bonuses, is lobbying for another four-year contract and, presumably, more money and a hefty buy-out clause. So the Board voted 3-2 to hire a $10,000 consultant to tell us about comparable superintendent salary packages in California and across the nation – information already available to us free of charge from state and national organizations as well as from the story written by Union-Tribune education reporter Maureen Magee. The consultant listed as references a who's who of business friends of the Superintendent, including the Superintendent himself. The Superintendent's contract was extended at the Board meeting of April 9 after less than 6 hours of deliberation in closed session on April 8-9. The Superintendent has a higher salary, bigger bonuses, and better retirement and health benefits than he had before. This passed by a vote of 3-2.
  
  Perhaps you share my view that any new contract should have waited until after a new Board takes office following the November 5 General Election. This motion was defeated 3-2.
   
• La Jolla High School Charter or Special Deal?
  Also at the April 9 Board meeting, high-stakes negotiations between the Superintendent and La Jolla High School community were concluded, with this excellent high school staying in the District but being exempted from the onerous strictures of the Blueprint. Bersin has offered to free the school from Blueprint requirements like "active physics" if it would accept a special dispensation for being a high-performance place. Thus, the Superintendent saved face and the high school retains its autonomy to serve every student according to his or her needs. See my pre-vote commentary on this subject on the La Jolla Village News link dated Wednesday, March 20, 2002.
   
• Teachers Blue over Blueprint and Bersin Responds
  A long and scathing assessment of the plight of San Diego Unified teachers was printed in the most recent edition of the California Teachers' Association Educator. In the story, SDEA President Marc Knapp describes the Blueprint system as "cooky-cutter, which is all right if you are a cooky." And African-American peer coach Demetrous Davis likens teaching any way other than the Blueprint Way to Harriet Tubman's stealth saving of slaves via the Underground Railway. It would be funny if it were not so sad. See the Superintendent's response on the link dated March 21, 2002.
   
• School Board Candidates Jeff Lee and John deBeck
  Jeff Lee from District B and John deBeck from District C are running citywide for election to Board of Education in the November 5 General Election. Both are endorsed by the San Diego Teachers Association.
  
  Jeff Lee is a retired U.S.Navy officer, father of two sons in our public schools, a person whom I have known ever since I was first elected to the Board in 1996. I know Jeff personally to be a good father, a man of integrity who is calm, reflective, intelligent and fair. He is well-versed on curriculum, standards, budget and the challenge of parent involvement in the school system. With his wife Mitz, he has worked for years to bring parents into partnership with the district's teachers and administrators through their Alliance for Quality Education.(AQE.) He believes in good public education that serves all children well. He will be opposed by a woman who is a lawyer for the Board at USD, has big money behind her, and is endorsed by Sue Braun, the retiring Board member from District B. As San Francisco Mayor Willy Brown used to say, compare and decide. It shouldn't be difficult.
  
  John deBeck has been a valued colleague for the last five years. John is honest to a fault, innovative and deeply committed to excellent public education in San Diego. His years of experience as a teacher and counselor in our schools make him the most knowledgeable person on the Board about the complex functions and history of the San Diego Unified School District. John understands kids and what they need to succeed in life – he and his wife Maxine have seven adult children – and he knows how public school can help young people set and achieve goals.
  
  John knows that diversity and breadth in education are like water, air and light – essential for growth. He believes, as I do, in the comprehensive curriculum that includes art, music, math, science, literature, social studies, foreign language and manual arts, and he is unwilling to sacrifice it to the restrictive "Blueprint for Student Success." John believes, as I do, in asking hard questions and then finding answers through collaborative planning for long-lasting education reform.
  
  John's opponent is a retired employee of the FBI who unprecedentedly received Primary Election funding from the Republican Party for this non-partisan School Board race. Compare and decide. It should be easy.