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*For the reform agenda of the nation's second largest (and most
dysfunctional) public school system, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the year in which major revelations to fix a broken system came and went.
One thing we know for sure for LAUSD Superintendent, Admiral David Brewer, the ditch is getting deeper. But this daunting task to fix LAUSD wasn't specific to him, as this would have been the case for anyone who was selected to take the job. However, Admiral Brewer's selection was a political coup in the midst of a highly political attempted takeover.
His arrival, as controversial as it was (the board rejected Mayor Villaraigosa's request to sign off on the selection), was falsely heralded as some sort of salvation for the children of the district. It would be impossible for any one man (or woman) to save LAUSD. False expectations is a reformer's worse enemy and it can't happen in a vacuum. He will need help from the School Board, from the Mayor, from the teachers and their union, from the administrative and classified employees, from parents groups and from the students themselves. Most of these segments have been slow to arrive, but the buck stops at Brewer in the eyes of the public. The criticism of Brewer's progress (or lack of it) has been increasing over the past few months (coinciding with his first anniversary at the helm of the district).
Everybody has a report card, Mr. Superintendent (including you). Yet, the city, and the black community in particular, can't get caught up in the hype. We should evaluate Admiral Brewer in the truest context in which his job has occurred. If that means defending the indefensible (the continuing dysfunctionality of the district), for a minute, we need to be prepared to do that.
Let me state for the record, that I am a severe critic of LAUSD, and have said on more than one occasion that I would never put a child of mine (or grandchild) in LAUSD, in its current state. I'd home school them first. LAUSD has produced three generations of functional illiterates. The overwhelming majority of students are not being sufficiently educated-though we are quick to point to exceptions as the rule. We now know that the rule is the rule and the median LAUSD student doesn't graduate and reads below the sixth grade level. We've long known that thirty years of ignoring the district's facilities infrastructure would eventually catch up with it, as schools built to house 700 to 1,000 students frequently house 2,000 to 3,000 students. Classroom size ballooned from 25 to 45 (larger in some instances) and learning materials were desperately distributed throughout the district.
The quality of teaching has fallen as demand for teachers were met with inexperienced and emergency credentialed "newbies" underprepared to teach the students most in need of curricular and cultural enrichment. LAUSD hasn't been a pretty picture for some time, as two of the last three Mayors have taken over the legislative policy aspect (school board) to influence and hopefully change the administrative performance of the district. Two superintendents focused on the infra-structure enhancement of the district largely because it was easier than focusing on the academic enhancement of the district. Nobody, except the black school board members (Barbara Boudreaux, Genethia Hayes and now Margeruite LaMotte), called for radical school reconstruction of the district to address the most underperforming and culturally deficient schools, until Villaraigosa made it a campaign issue for Mayor (and it was an issue he got from us, the black community). That's the issue he and I came together on in 2001 (when nobody was with him) and again in 2005 (when everybody was with him). In that regard, he should be credited with making public schools the salient issue of the city and being the impetus for forcing the change that produced Brewer's appointment. However, everybody knew the next superintendent was stepping into a "no win" situation.
If anything, those of us early warned that Brewer had a short window of opportunity "to make something happen," or he'd be set-up for a takedown - victim of a monstrosity of a bureaucratic beast that has chewed up and spit out more than its fair share of "reformers" over the past three decades. Well, the second thing we now know for sure is that the honeymoon of David Brewer is over. His bride (Villaraigosa) never showed up and is still on his mission to control the 30 bottom performing through a $50 million dollar private fund. That's really the least of Brewer's worries. He can't control what the Mayor's going to do, but he can control the things he can do - and he hasn't done a great job of that, namely bringing in his own team and charting his own course (with his own strategic plan). Those are his Achilles heels.
Brewer went on a honeymoon tour around the city and danced with most any and everyone he thought could give him a clue (more on this in a minute). At the end of the day, David Brewer is a pretty lonely man, of late. The majority of those that were responsible for his selection have since been voted off the school board. Like a groom waiting for his bride to show up at the altar, Brewer spent the better part of his first year waiting for a partner (the Mayor) that has yet to show up. His top administrative slots are either vacant or disloyal. The one thing his predecessor, Romer, did was clear out the top ranks, restructure and appoint his people in strategic positions. He raided the naval administrative ranks to do list, and they didn't know sh*t about education - but they knew how to manage large administrative budgets so they advanced the construction of new schools with the newly available bond money and he got his people paid in the process because of their loyalty. Brewer, being a military man, should know that loyalty comes above everything else in any new situation. It's hard as hell to run a monster like LAUSD when you don't know who to trust.
Then, there's the issue of the strategic plan. In the first month of Brewer's appointment, I attended, at least, four meetings where we heard about this plan. In the last six months, I've offered Brewer (though his people) the opportunity to use the Urban Issues Forum to roll out his strategic plan. I've only seen him at social events since then (he does a lot of those - too many in my opinion), but the absence of a plan is now the bat being used to hit him over the head. And it's Brewer's own bat. He needs to get on track with that. Appearing in Larry Aubrey's and others columns/papers every week is not a good thing. It's not good to give the public and education critics ammunition to beat you up (or down). I've been an interested observer to this point, but the tide is clearly turning against David Brewer. Los Angeles has been known as a city that will pile on when they have a person down. This is a call to opt for reason, given the task this Superintendent (any superintendent) is faced with. It is time to watch a little closer and help if we can. One way to help is to create a public discussion about it and see where it goes from there.
This is a district that ate up and spit out desegregation (Los Angeles was the first city the federal courts withdrew from mandatory busing because of the resistance and largeness of the district). David Brewer would be a small chew comparatively speaking. This is essentially my last attempt at publicly defending what I've long considered an indefensible situation. Next time, I may not be as diplomatic (just ask the Mayor what I mean). I'm trying to address this issue, reverently.
Anthony Asadullah Samad, Ph.D., is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum (www.urbanissuesforum.com) and author of the new book, Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. He can be reached at www.AnthonySamad.com