A Summary of My Views

By William A. Bibbiani

As PUSD's Director of Research and de facto chief planner prior to my retirement in 2003, and a board member, I am proud of my leading role in restoring neighborhood schools, reducing busing to its lowest level since 1970, opening McKinley, expanding Don Benito and re-opening the Sierra Mesa site to serve Sierra Madre's middle school students.

The real task before the new board will be to define a better balance between the Education Center and the schools and an administrative model which the district can afford + one which promotes real school-level decision-making. The current system too easily allows poorer performing schools (and administrators) to claim they are just following orders.

If the chief attribute of private and charter schools is their ability to adapt to the needs of their students, the skills of their staffs and the expectations of parents, with lower overhead costs, I believe PUSD's schools ought to be delegated a similar range of flexibility and accountability. They need more support and fewer orders.

Changing how PUSD operates by defining a new relationship between the schools and the district is a first and financially necessary step in changing the dynamics of the schools and their respective neighborhoods and constituencies. In poll after poll, the same people who express frustration with public education in general simultaneously express their belief that the schools their children are attending are doing well. We need to strengthen these ties.

I have been endorsed by the Pasadena Star news and the Pasadena Weekly.The Star News editorial of April 6th noted that "...even with long decades of experience in the educational trenches, [Bib] couldn't be less of a conventional bureaucrat." More importantly, the range of my supporters is truly representative of the PUSD and the communities of Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra Madre. If you want an independent voice which reflects this diversity and isn't afraid of the opinions which it generates, I would appreciate your vote on April 17.

Bill Bibbiani bibbiani@earthlink.net or 626 791-0259