Esperanza Zendejas: The Unauthorized Biography
Part I: The Lame Cactus
In the North American Southwest, a diamondback lurks in coiled comfort to await its careless prey. A migrating millipede, cyanide seeping, kills a potential predator who never had a chance to touch the orange hue of its outer shell. The searing sun spreads across the scorpion’s shielded back; stinger striking, its envenomed victim succumbs to the inevitability of a sudden death.
Inhospitable climates breed fierce creatures.
The sun dries daily this waterless wasteland, home not only to rapacious predators but a fearful, unapproachable plant residing atop the cracking parsimonious ground, living only to horde the few resources this barren land affords. In this home of scorched earth and endless dust lives the desert cactus, the selfish succulent whose severing needles waylay the grasp of those thirsting for its watery stores. Deceptive and aloof, it pricks any who fail to ignore the coy invitation of its duplicitous flower.
Nearby, somewhere on the blurred border between an intolerable and sufferable existence, a different type of arrant flower bloomed. During her years in academia, a definitive cycle of pollination had developed, fertilized in the stigma documented on her professional resume. On paper this narcissus-like administrator appealed: an extensive educational background including an Ed.D. from Stanford, a few solid years of experience in school leadership positions, and a cultural history shared by students in urban and rural districts across the Southwest. Allured by these desirable qualities, the Westmoreland School District transplanted her from Northern California in 1988. The flower was in glorious bloom when she arrived, but instantly withered the minute her welcome wore out, only to reach full bloom again when another professional opportunity arose in the tolerable desert of Indio, California: the superintendency of the Desert Sands School District.
The pollination growth cycle of opportunity-in-bloom and withering welcome lasts two to three years per job held. Some see this pattern of professional mobility in Dr. Esperanza Zendejas’ resume as relatively standard for the modern-day superintendent. Who can really fault a person for taking advantage of more lucrative opportunities when they arise, especially a person with a personal and educational background in high demand in districts across the nation? Her critics, however, view this extensive list of employers as a well-established pattern of instability, a series of jobs in different cities that hint at a succession of failures. Somewhere in between these ends of the continuum lies a third possibility; the cultivation of a professional identity as a tough reformer, a blend of a genuine recognition to change a flawed public education system overpowered by a Machiavellian instinct to take advantage of job opportunities that provide increased personal wealth, power, political connections, and professional acclaim. Toss in the occupational narcissism that comes with the political aspects of a superintendent position, as well as a related psychological narcissistic personality disorder, and a more definitive picture of the story behind her resume comes into focus.
By 1992, Zendejas wore out her welcome in Desert Sands, the experience becoming another line item on a growing resume. She searched for a better opportunity that would allow her professional identity to bloom. As with the leap from Westmoreland to Desert Sands, she hoped the opportunity would be more financially and self-promotionally lucrative. Two states away, opportunity knocked.
For some, Brownsville, Texas can be as inhospitable as the California desert. Situated at the bottom of the state near the Gulf and the Mexican border, it is a town whose economic disparity showcases the best and the worst in American life. Parts of town are home to palatial mansions and expansive ranches, grand testaments to the American stereotype of Texas’ abundance and affluence. Near the Mexican border, a string of shanty lean-to communities pepper the landscape. These are the dwellings of many of the migrant workers. Condemned for exorbitant health and safety violations, while lacking the basic conveniences of power, sewage and running water, its destitute residents tough it out by holding onto the idealistic, often futile hope of a better future that never seems to come.
Brownsville’s local public school system, Brownsville Independent School District (BISD) faces the fallout of this social inequity everyday. Since most of the affluent families send their children to private schools, the remaining 60 thousand students come from the middle and lower classes. Nearly all students are Latino (over 90%) with 40% speaking English as a second language and over 80% qualifying for the federal free and reduced lunch program. One would hope these students with some of the greatest needs to be found in any American public school would find articulate advocates on the local school board championing their cause and doing all in their power to narrow the achievement gap. Unfortunately, political dysfunction and self-serving opportunism are just as endemic in American school board governance as poverty in rural and urban communities.
In an ideal Democratic system, incumbents lose elections when they prove to be too incompetent for the position. Not much information exists about the makeup of the Board that hired Zendejas, but a 2003 auditor’s report sheds some light on the antics of the BISD Board of Trustees. If these people were voted in because disgruntled registered voters found the former incumbents inept, one gets a picture of the corruption and dysfunction historically plaguing this beleaguered school district. The audit, conducted by the Texas School Performance Review (TSPR)—a state-sanctioned school management auditing organization—found that board members “operated outside of their roles as policy makers and have acted as individuals rather than as a board of the whole,” including bypassing the usual project proposal bidding process, reversing administration decisions, and micromanaging district internal affairs; that “BISD board meetings are unorganized and difficult to follow because the board does not consistently adhere to Robert’s Rules of Order”; that there is no “evidence that the superintendent receives regular, formal evaluations”; and that “Board members may not be consistently adhering to conflict of interest policies as prescribed by district policy and state law.” This last point is the most egregious. One board member failed to disclose an association with the real estate agency handling the purchase of 37 acres of land for the district; another was a licensed insurance agent who failed to abstain from voting when the board decided to enter into a $26 million dollar contract with his company. (Happy reading!: http://www.window.state.tx.us/tspr/brownsville/ch01a.htm )
Besides finding new ways to profit off the public trust while getting free lessons in Robert’s Rules before campaigning for a more prestigious public office, another truism of American school board politics is “reform posturing.” A cornerstone of any good political campaign, the hopeful candidate builds a voter support base by declaring the particular branch of government being sought is in need of serious reform, proceeding to distance him or herself from the incumbent candidate through a series of ad hominem attacks and position statements laden with unspecific weasel words like “accountability,” “personal responsibility,” and “special interests.” But behind the scenes, school boards are merely a microcosm of any larger political institution; the call for reform stems from a festering paranoia that leads to courting trustworthy loyalists and eliminating feared enemies—consensus building, Machiavellian style.
In the press, BISD’s batch of trustees in 1992, people like Pete Gilman and Margaret Etchison, stated they wanted a candidate with superintendent experience and a doctorate who spoke fluent Spanish. Privately, trustees like Joan Dentler were calling for “a very well-deserved shakeup.” That’s when the flowery resume and off-the-record reputation of Dr. Esperanza Zendejas caught the board’s attention.
Zendejas took the reigns of BISD that summer, earning 105k with a 10k benefits package, about double the pay of an entry-level BISD high school principal. One of her first public proclamations was that “all principals in the school district would be transferred” to different school sites. Privately, she threatened to fire or transfer back to the classroom any principal or associate principal who failed to live up to the results she expected.
Some claim this shuffling idea stems from an education management philosophy modeled on private sector practices learned in her Stanford doctorate program. Its proponents believe transferring administrators every five years brings fresh perspectives to schools in need of reform. Its opponents contend that what works in the manufacturing sector will never work in a non-profit institution whose aim is to make socially productive human beings, not widgets or seat belts. Some of those administrators were surely ineffective and the administrative change was welcomed; one source indicates that school site leadership was determined by good ol’ boy practices insiders labeled “the compadre system.” But those who taught, attended or had students at schools with supportive and inspirational site leadership immediately felt like unwitting victims pricked by a treacherous cactus needle.
In Brownsville Zendejas perfected her trademark series of controversial reforms that would garner public acclaim in the media, and private criticism from those closely associated with school management. She communicated with board members regularly and made sure to generate comprehensive weekly reports. These reports were so detailed that, to the uncritical eye, they appeared honest and accurate. Later in her career, ESUHSD Trustee J. Manuel Herrera would publicly declare that her reports were so informative that there was no need to question the content.
Besides duping her inattentive superiors with the flashy spin of budget numbers and student performance indicators, Zendejas fed the egos of those board members riding on the school reform bandwagon by instituting a tough accountability plan that set higher goals than the standardized test-driven Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS). Eleven schools were deemed underperforming by Texas’ standards; Zendejas’ accountability system designated an additional eight as underperforming. With 19 schools operating under the stigma of academic probation, teachers and site-administrators grew weary from the strain. Parents and students started to take notice.
Another trademark Zendejas initiative seems to have taken root during this time: community outreach through broadcast media. BISD operates its own cable access channel with 24 hour a day educational programming, including a show hosted by the district’s superintendent. In a media-saturated age when reading is in serious decline, Zendejas argues that schools must use alternative forms of media to increase parent communication (you can listen to her make the case here: http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R503240900 ). While her argument has merit, one wonders how many of Brownsville’s impoverished families could afford to pay for cable let alone the electric power to operate a television in a lean-to. And however valid expanding community communication through media saturation might be, critics can equally contend the move blurs the line between district-funded public service and political self-promotion.
By the end of the 1993 school year television shows were broadcast, schools were put on probation, and principals were transferred. BISD trustees mechanically thumbed through Zendejas’ meticulously spun reports, each line item persuading the casual glance of the reader with a justification for the action taken. The fruits of Zendejas’ reform efforts seemed to be having their desired political impact. But the authoritarian demeanor of the person charged with their implementation was beginning to draw the ire of educators, parents, and the press.
A big part of the problem behind the scenes arose from Zendejas’ incompetence as a manager. According to a TSPR audit conducted in the Spring of 1994 during Zendejas’ tenure (which you can read here: http://www.window.state.tx.us/tpr/tspr/summries/brownsvl.html )
neither strategic plan nor campus improvement plan needs were ever addressed in the district’s budget; management failed to reconcile some of their accounts in the General Ledger in a timely manner; and the district failed to access “the full amount of federal Emergency Immigrant funds for which it [was] eligible.”
The bigger problem stemmed from declining employee morale. The administrator shuffling led a number of highly qualified people at both the district and the site level to move to less turbulent school districts. The TSPR audit clearly alludes to the severity of the problem, leaving little room to ponder about the debilitating effect on employee morale: “The organizational structure of BISD is very unstable and not logically grouped. Positions and responsibilities fluctuate on a regular basis, and several temporary assignments are being made to fill voids in the central office. School-level personnel are unclear as to central office roles and responsibilities.”
As teachers and other school personnel tried to figure out who was in charge of what, disgruntled parents and employees began speaking out during increasingly crowded board meetings. Charges of harassment started to surface during closed session. Rumors started to spread across Brownsville’s campuses. Was she trying to reform the schools? Was she overstepping her bounds? Was she uncovering corruption or manufacturing scandals?
In the end it was another trademark Zendejas practice that kept the word “controversial” stewing on the public’s mind, the very voters board members belatedly realized would be heading to the polls in just over a year. A few months before TSPR began to conduct their audit, Zendejas conducted one of her own. She “ordered the school system’s financial office to audit schools which had principals reassigned to new campuses.” She argued that the move was made to reign in an area of problematic and uncontrolled spending, even though, by her own admission “those accounts did not use any money from the general budget.” Her critics charge she conducted the audit to stir up a controversy that would give her public acclaim and an opportunity to humiliate a handful of names on her expanding enemies list. And when she was done with the audit, she leaked the information to the Brownsville Herald, as this all-too familiar opening paragraph suggests: “An internal audit of accounts at several Brownsville schools turned up ‘inconsistencies’ in bookkeeping that may involve employees of the district, ACCORDING TO SUPERINTENDENT ESPERANZA ZENDEJAS.”
Timing, however, is not one of her strong suits. While she leaked the information to the press through Drue Brown, the district’s public information officer, the BISD legal counsel knew that US law, even in Texas, was predicated on the foundation of being innocent until proven guilty. The press quickly fanned the spark of possible controversy into a scandalous “little fire”: “Repeated attempts by the Brownsville Herald to obtain copies of the audit this week have been delayed by the district. The delay is believed to be a violation of the Freedom of Information Act and the Texas Open Records Act. The Herald submitted a FOIA request for the audit reports on Friday, but the district has 10 working days to comply with the request. The problems, however, may eventually lead to the firing of personnel.” The issue of controlling principal spending was even spun into a line item mentioned in the TSPR report.
But the damage from this and other similar incidents was done. Employees were furious. Principals felt under constant attack from their superiors. Classroom teachers grew suspicious of their site administrators and district management. The ripple effect of sustained instability enraged parents, who quickly found few sympathetic ears willing to hear their complaints at the district office. And when the Board began to question the superintendent’s actions the found “Esperanza Zendejas [. . .] wasn’t shy about stepping on toes.”
Within a few months, the flower withered.
As the election loomed nearer, Zendejas became a major focus of the election. Some saw the coming election as a referendum on Zendejas’ reform efforts. Two of her primary supporters, Gay Greenspan and Margaret Etchison, stood by the reformer they hired. But Zendejas didn’t wait around for the results. That April, Zendejas left the district and headed north for a more prestigious position: Superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools. Choosing a new superintendent rose to the top of the election debate.
That May, four new trustees were elected to the BISD Board of Trustees. Gay Greenspan and Margaret Etchison lost their reelection bids. The referendum on Zendejas’ tenure was made.
After Zendejas’ departure, Trustee Carlos Gonzalez told the Brownsville Herald that with Zendejas out of the picture, trustees “[didn’t] spend so much time trying to put out little fires, and [could] get on with the everyday business of BISD.” The board appointed Wally Jackson to be the interim superintendent, then awarded him the job by the end of December in 1996. He would be praised in the Brownsville Herald for his “subtle way of doing things.”
The Herald’s reporting of the contrast between the two superintendents was not subtle. The board was “pleased with [Jackson’s] easy-going style.” Gonzalez told the paper, “He does an extremely good job with personal relations,” and in another article noted “He likes to take his orders and get things done.” Former trustee Etchison said of Jackson, “He listens. He’s capable. He just doesn’t like to make decisions.” Another former trustee conceded “BISD could use a little tender leadership now.” But it was ex-board member Joan Dentler who exposed the underlying reform desires of the former trustees of the BISD Board, claiming that Zendejas’ “very-well deserved” shakeup was good for the district and its management, telling the Herald, “Now it’s time for the pieces to settle and to see if they work.”
One Zendejas reform in particular didn’t seem to take root with the new BISD trustees. While former trustee Pete Gilman decried Jackson’s appointment, calling for the Board to continue their search, then-Board President John Weber noted, “That would be three (superintendents) in three years. [. . .] It would not be in the best interests of the children of Brownsville to continually have that change in the main office.” For the time being, administrative stability would rule the day.
Meanwhile, across the lone and level sands that stretched north, a self-proclaimed “urban warrior” had begun to wear out her welcome.
(Unless otherwise noted, all cited information comes from the Unruly Advocate Brownsville Herald Archives).
Coming this summer, Esperanza Zendejas, The Unauthorized Biography Part II: Indianapolis Fallibility.
