Questions and Answers Submitted to West Pasadena Residents

By Edmund C. "Ed" Barnum

The single most important reason was the failure of the current Board to assume leadership and recognize the shortcomings in the PUSD.

The single most important reason was the failure of the current Board to assume leadership and recognize the shortcomings in the PUSD. As part of my duties on the Citizens' Oversight Committee for Measure Y, I have attended almost all the Board meetings for the past three years as well hundred of meetings with architects, project managers, and site teams. I have been frustrated by the opportunities for improvement that are not being addressed. Four years ago, I quit my regular work at Unocal after over 22 years to primarily do volunteer work. I have a broad business and education (MBA- University of Chicago and engineering degrees from Rice University) that I think will be beneficial to the PUSD to reach out for these opportunities.. We have a lot of problems in this district that are not acknowledged and will require much time from Board members. I have been spending 15-20 hours a week the last three years getting up to speed. The ultimate straw that broke my confidence in the current Board occurred when they voted 4-1 not to have a Board member on the search committee for the new superintendent.

Question 2: How do you see the School Board improving communication to the general population of the Pasadena regarding changes and improvement in the school system?

Communication is two ways and involves both good and bad news. The approach of the current Board is to only put a positive spin on the condition of the school district. You cannot fix problems if you first to not acknowledge them. The public with one exception that I can recall in the last three years only tells the Board bad news. This exception was when 250 people came out to support the Caltech supported science program. The current Board does not recognize the need for action and sometimes faced with a decision, says let's form a task force and have them get back to us six months later after poorly attended forums. I would be a Board member wanting more action and less communication whose sole purpose was to shift responsibility.

Question 3: Are there any recommendations in Measure DD, the Reform Plan of the Charter Reform Task Force on School District Governance, that you do not agree with? And why?

In a plan this comprehensive with so many subjects, I can find three major areas that I would have given more emphasis and one recommendation in which I did disagree. First, I would have greatly emphasized the need for choosing the best reading, math, science, and humanities curriculums and making sure that every classroom in every school across the district was teaching subjects that way. The Feb. 20 curriculum management audit commissioned by the interim superintendent should serve as the bible for the new Board. Second, we need better leadership from the school board, superintendent, administrators, and principals. The third difference is the failure of the personnel commission. It takes six months to replace entry level accounting clerks. It takes nine months for higher level classified employees. Private industry does not have these restrictions nor to 90 percent of the other school districts. The PUSD cannot effectively complete with other school districts. Finally, I believe Board members should be elected across the district. The voters are spread out, but the students are concentrated in northwest Pasadena. The schools are also not divided equally by voters. I think Board members need to insure parity across the district.

Question 4: Would you give principals more administrative autonomy to meet standards set by the School Board?

In general, my management philosophy has been that you always push down decisions to as low a level as possible. However, this assumes you have competent managers at lower levels. We have a wide array in the ability levels of the principals and administrators in the PUSD. Some elementary schools have several different types of reading and math programs seeming at the whim of individual teachers. We have teachers who want to teach but they are not curriculum experts. I would vote to have the new superintendent select the best math, reading, science, and humanities curriculums. The new superintendent needs to make sure these programs are then taught in each classroom across the district. Some principals have become so intoxicated with test scores, they have forgotten to teach knowledge and inspire kids to pursue knowledge on their own. I would also vote to direct the superintendent to develop better criteria to evaluate the performance of each principal and administrator. Without good leaders at all the schools, it will continue to be impossible to grant more administrative authority.

Question 5: Has PUSD adequately implemented the State Board of Education Academic Standards? What are reasonable expectations for PUSD test scores?

I think Pasadena, Altadena, and Sierra Madre form a special area. We are not a typical inner city urban area and we are not a suburban community. We have ethnic diversity, cultural history, and economic resources. We should be at least comparable to San Diego and Sacramento school districts. That means we should expect to have our schools scoring fives and sixes out of ten compared to all schools in California. We are now scoring two's and three's and think that is great because we are only looking at the "nines" we get in the narrow pool of "urban" schools.