HEY SAN DIEGO! IT’S TIME TO GET UNRULY!

Last month we published a letter and an article from a reader all the way down in San Diego. Needless to say, we were ecstatic to discover we had readers in San Diego. Team Unruly started talking, and the suggestion came up that we should start a section dedicated to documenting stories about the impact of former San Diego Unified superintendent Alan Bersin’s seven year reign of terror. That idea has come of age thanks to San Diego Union-Tribune writer Ruben Navarrette, Jr. whose recent pro-Bersin editorial made its way into one of our local newspapers (Since there is no link, we’ll reprint the entire article):

Two Los Angeles-based radio talk show hosts almost put their finger on the problem with the public school system and why those who try to reform it run into brick walls.

Here’s how one of them put it: “It’s like the only thing that matters is what’s good for the adults, and not what’s good for the kids.”

Bingo. It always comes back to this: the competing interests of the adults who work in the school system with those of the students supposedly served by that system.

The trouble was that the radio jocks—John Kobylt and ken Chiampou—didn’t go far enough in advancing that argument. Instead, they got hung up on what got them talking about education in the first place: a newspaper story about the $250,000 annual salary of a school superintendent in Southern California. It bothered the hosts that the superintendent was pulling down this hefty salary while students were being squeezed into portable classrooms.

Here’s what should have bothered them: It’s not just money, it’s that this habit of putting adults first spills into everything. It helps explain why educators are quick to dig in and fight off any proposed reform, from testing to merit pay to fixing special education.

You name it, and the reason that it’s creating friction or meeting resistance is because it pits the interests of adults against those of children. And in the public school system, the adults run the show.

I heard the same thing about 10 years ago during a frank and honest exchange with a Mexican-American school superintendent in Central California. He told me that the way the educational system was set up, everything is done—or, in case of reform efforts, often not done—to serve the adults who depended on that system for their livelihoods.

And I heard the same thing from departing San Diego Unified Superintendent Alan Bersin, a hard-charging reformer who resigned recently after losing a shoving match with teachers unions and their allies on the school board. The thin is, Bersin is no pushover. A former U.S. attorney, he’s a tough guy who has prosecuted corporate criminals and drug dealers and organized crime figures. You would think that, in him, the unions who barter and trade on what President Bush calls “the soft bigotry of low expectations” would have finally met their match.

Think again. The more Bersin tried to hold schools accountable and set performance goals for students, the more the unions made him a target. He drafted a “blueprint” on how to raise student performance, and the unions leveled so much criticism against it—and against him—that before long, he was black and blue. Eventually, he lost favor with a majority of the five-member school board, and then it was only a matter of time before he was forced out.

Now Bersin is headed to Sacramento, having been appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to serve as California secretary of education. Recently, Bersin met with the editorial board of The San Diego Union-Tribune and shared some lessons he picked up from locking horns with those who fight for the status quo. Americans have to decide what they want from schools, he said.

That’s the article we received up here. No mention of the totalitarian threats, the salary increases for management, the firing of administrators, the subsequent lawsuit, the decimated morale. Navarrette celebrates the “Blueprint” but fails to mention how Bersin padded the numbers to make the plan look better than it actually was. And talk about taking a radio show comment out of context!

The Unruly Advocate cannot let this type of journalistic ineptitude go unanswered. We’re sure many of you are just as outraged as we are. Now that Bersin is everybody’s problem, we need your help San Diego.

Assist us in educating our Northern California readers about Bersin’s blunders and totalitarian leanings. There’s a lot to be said for the human element—we really want to know the inside scoop. We’ll post all your letters and comments in a separate section. We’ll be happy to publish all opinions, though we’re sure the 96% who voted no confidence in the man will have a bit more to say. And, as always, we’ll keep your identity confidential unless otherwise requested. Contact us at teamunruly@unrulyrus.com