Candidate for
Board Member; San Diego Unified School District; Trustee Area A

I believe public school is one of the great common denominators in American life. As our society becomes more pluralistic, I believe public school becomes more important and relevant for the creation of an informed, productive and appreciatively tolerant citizenry. In this country, public school is our earliest common ground and, as such, deserves our full attention, energy and commitment.

After a generation of neglect, public education in California is once again getting serious scrutiny and additional resources. Our children are making progress. We are focusing on high standards of performance and accountability from students and their parents, teachers and principals, boards of education and superintendents, governors and legislators. We are looking for ways to further reduce class size beyond grade 3, to better prepare teachers and principals as instructional leaders, to lengthen the academic day and year, to test students before they graduate from high school.

Reform of our education system will take time, devotion, patience and money. We are just beginning to make amends for all the dry years. But this clearly is a moment of positive change, and we ought not be diverted by the siren-song of voucher proponents. After buying their way onto the California ballot this year and advertising their idea with a slick sales pitch, multi-millionaire voucher proponents would pull down the edifice of free public education.

The facts are that vouchers will be used to finance the education of children who are already enrolled in private and parochial schools; they will permit unregulated fly-by-night schools to spring up; they will create a huge and expensive accounts-payable bureaucracy; and they will harm further the financial base of public education that was permanently dented by passage of Prop 13 many years ago.

The facts are that San Diegans do not need vouchers when families here already have wide choice in the form of more than a dozen different public charter schools, as well as our regular and magnet school programs. San Diegans do not need vouchers when there is a responsible and responsive elected Board of Education.

I believe excellent public education is expensive, labor intensive, mind-altering work. As educators, we are obliged to do many things well and fairly, across the entire district. We are supposed to deliver a broad curriculum that embraces basic literacy skills of reading, writing and expression, and also art, music, math, science, social studies, and languages. We don't pick and choose what to emphasize: it's a package deal. And we are supposed to show continuous progress in student achievement.

Furthermore, we are obliged to deliver this general education to students of all ages, including middle school and high school students, and to thousands of kids who are English learners and in special education. Our students should graduate from high school knowing that they have accomplished something valuable, and they should want to keep on learning -- in extension, at night school, community college, state college or the university -- and they should want to read the newspaper, vote and pay taxes when they grow up.

I do believe that all kids need to be known as individuals at their schools and that everyone at a school deserves tolerance, respect and decent treatment. I believe adults need to model excellent behavior -- especially kindness and attentiveness -- and that they should intervene when they witness cruelty, hazing, ridicule or bizarre dress and attitude.

Smaller classes would allow us to make time for our students as individuals and to personally interact with them. With more and better counselors with smaller caseloads, we could head off trouble by developing peer counseling and mediation training for students. We need school communities where principals know students by their names, and, at the secondary level, a resident police officer can help staff keep the community peaceful and safe.