Same Hydra, New Head: Bersin and San Diego's Matchbook School of Journalism Alumni

Late in April the guy in the mail office in the Team Unruly basement crawled up to the editorial board offices to deliver this letter from an Unruly reader way down south in San Diego:

We in San Diego are disappointed at the turn of events.

In looking for info on Bersin, I came across your site.

He is connected and dangerous and dear Arnold has lost my respect and support.

Just thought you might be interested – thanks for your site.

Team Unruly was ecstatic! People are actually reading our subversive, counter revolutionary anti-corporate media website 500 miles away. Along with the letter, our San Diego friend sent this article on Schwarzenegger’s appointment of Alan Bersin, the ousted dysfunctional despot of San Diego Unified, to the State Secretary of Education position:

County abuzz with news of Bersin's appointment as state education secretary
By: North County Times staff and wire reports

LOS ANGELES ---- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed the superintendent of San Diego schools, Alan Bersin, the state's secretary of education on Friday, a pick that alarmed the teachers union and signaled continued friction between the governor and organized labor.

Bersin, 58, a former federal prosecutor, is the second San Diego County superintendent to be tapped for a prestigious state education position. Oceanside Superintendent Ken Noonan was picked for the state Board of Education by Schwarzenegger earlier this month.

Bersin will take the job when Richard Riordan resigns in June. Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor and a political ally of Schwarzenegger, announced Wednesday that he will step down. As primary adviser to the governor on education, the secretary is charged with creating, promoting and supporting the governor’s policies to ensure access to quality education for all Californians, according to the department's Web site.

Bersin's contract with San Diego city schools was initially set to expire in 2006, but the San Diego school board agreed in January to shorten his term after teachers union officials gathered some 40,000 signatures urging the board to oust him.

"Alan is a reformer, and that's what I love about him," Schwarzenegger said at his downtown office here, with Bersin at his side.

"I'm not a governor that represents the unions ---- I represent the people," the governor said, when asked about his strained relations with the union. "They are against the reforms that we want."

Around San Diego County, the Bersin appointment had everyone buzzing, said Jim Esterbrooks, a spokesman with the San Diego County Office of Education.

"It has a lot of people talking," Esterbrooks said. "He was a lightning rod in San Diego. He had his share of supporters and detractors."

Vista Teachers Association Susie Bristow said that she "absolutely" believes that Bersin's stance against unions was the reason Schwarzenegger picked him for the job.

In Bersin, Schwarzenegger found an ally whose record suggests a willingness to confront organized labor, which has been feuding with the governor over school funding and other issues.

Bersin, who has led San Diego schools since 1998, pushed reforms that caused division in the district. He emphasized literacy and math skills, hired highly paid consultants and increased teacher training.

Test scores went up, but some parents and teachers said the improvements came at the cost of arts, music and other elective programs.

Bersin said he wanted to win teacher support for change, but added: "I think its very important we find common group ... based on what kids need for their education, not what unions want for their employees."

Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Association, called Bersin's appointment a "disappointment for California students and public schools."

"During his seven-year tenure in San Diego, Alan Bersin's top-down bureaucratic style divided the community, hurt teacher morale and failed to significantly improve student learning," Kerr added. "He has no track record of building any kind of consensus."

The choice "shows how out of touch the governor is," said Terry Pesta, president of the San Diego Education Association, which represents 9,000 teachers and staff in the San Diego Unified School District.

The district is "in total disarray," Pesta said.

Though the education secretary advises the governor and promotes policies, the position carries no authority over the Education Department, which is led by state Superintendent Jack O'Connell.

In a statement, O'Connell credited Bersin with "a wealth of experience, a passion for education."

The appointment comes at a time when the governor is locked in a political struggle with the state's powerful public employee unions. He proposed a series of ballot measures earlier this year aimed at curbing union power in Sacramento, including reducing taxpayer support for pensions, redrawing legislative districts and lengthening the time it takes teachers to attain tenure.
Recent polls show for the first time that a majority of voters do not approve of the way Schwarzenegger is doing his job. In a turnabout, he dropped the pension plan earlier this month and has made statements that raised doubts about the redistricting plan.

Kevin Gordon, a school district lobbyist in Sacramento, also praised the selection and said Bersin would be more effective than Riordan.

"Where Riordan never seemed to be able to convince the administration that some of his ideas would work ---- mostly because he couldn't articulate them ---- Bersin is very smart and very articulate," Gordon said.

The Associated Press and staff writer Rob O'Dell contributed to this story.

This article is an example of journalism done right. O’Dell and the AP folks who did the research give readers a true sense of just how controversial Bersin’s appointment is, even if they don’t provide the specifics. Longtime Unruly readers will remember our January feature “Blueprint for Success, Recipe for Disaster” where we provide an annotated list of Bersin’s questionable policies, which the Governor seems quick to celebrate as “reforms” (). For brevity’s sake, allow us to recap some of Bersin’s top moments in his seven years as an edu-autocrat. He developed a controversial reform plan called the “Blueprint for Success”, which emphasized improving standardized test scores by drowning students in “one-size fits all” remedial math and reading classes, particularly at the elementary level. Punitive measures were also included to punish those educators who failed to raise test scores.

The real problem with the plan wasn’t its message; it was its messenger. Bersin’s dictatorial management style decimated the morale of teachers and site administrators across the district. In one of his first employee meetings, he famously encouraged his administrative subordinates to support his reform plan by cheerfully telling the crowd “You are either with me or I will be ruthless in pursuing you!” Then he went on to fire fifteen administrators, sending police to each school site to escort the terminated employees off of the premises and, to pour salt in the wound, providing the media with each fired site-administrator’s home address so they could take pictures when these demoralized folks arrived home. Eleven of the fifteen would go on to file and eventually win a class-action wrongful dismissal lawsuit. His petty tyrant behavior led to a mass exodus of qualified teachers and principals out of the district and into neighboring school systems.

Eventually, the lackluster quality of Bersin’s Blueprint proved the document worthless. When test scores did not show that the Blueprint led to significant gains in student performance, Bersin went in and changed the numbers so the plan would look good to his superiors. Parents in one of San Diego’s most affluent neighborhoods, many of whom voted for Schwarzenegger and his weasel word clarion call for meaningless reform, were so outraged by the Blueprint that they threatened to covert La Jolla High School into a charter. Bersin’s extensive experience as a career lawyer rose to the surface; he negotiated a backdoor deal with the La Jolla High charter community that gave them freedom from the Blueprint and Bersin the ability to use La Jolla’s high test scores to pad the district’s student performance data.

A guy who bullies his enemies and alters statistics to make himself look good: those are the reforms Bersin champions, and “that’s what [Arnold] loves about him.” Arnold chose Bersin to directly attack CTA and their sub-regional unions, there’s no question about the political motivation behind the appointment. Pundits up and down the state agree that Arnold’s war with CTA et. al. is a huge political gamble. But nobody has pointed out the obvious: Bersin lost the battle with the union. In spite some of the most expensive school board elections this nation has ever seen, with pro-Bersin/anti-public education groups donating millions to sympathetic Bersin candidates, the man lost board support and his contract was bought out. Even moderate republicans in San Diego demanded Bersin’s ouster. Arnold might have the testicular fortitude to go all in with the Bersin gamble, but Team Unruly thinks years of steroid abuse has shriveled his political pragmatism.

The great line in the article from our Unruly San Diego reader comes at the end: “Riordan never seemed to be able to convince the administration that some of his ideas would work ---- mostly because he couldn't articulate them.” What does this say about Arnold’s ability to choose quality people for high-level positions?

In the next few months, Californians must prepare for the shift from inarticulate to despotic. Unfortunately, most Californians will only learn the truth about Bersin from alternative media sources. The major papers by and large are not covering the significance of Bersin’s appointment, primarily because Michael Jackson is on trial and there are lots of Wendy’s franchises with the potential to serve .99¢ chili con finger. One reason Bersin managed to stay in power for seven years had to do with the biased reporting taking place in the San Diego Tribune. There are so many examples of self-serving Bersin cheerleading gracing the archives of the Tribune it’s hard to choose just one. But we did, one that appeared about a week after Bersin’s contract was bought out. For our new friends in San Diego and to educate the masses here in Northern California, the Unruly Advocate presents another fine example of matchbook school journalism, San Diego Tribune-style:

Supporters vow to continue his work
By Helen Gao
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

January 29, 2005

Alan Bersin was showered with adulation yesterday, a day after the San Diego school board announced it would end the superintendent's contract a year early.

During a conference held at Marina Village in Mission Bay, a roomful of principals, vice principals and district employees thanked the superintendent for his vision and leadership.

School administrators emotionally praised Bersin's "courage and guts" in bringing change to the San Diego Unified School District.

The crowd of 350 gave Bersin a standing ovation. There were tears, hugs, applause, handshakes and a determination to carry on Bersin's work after he leaves office June 30.

Standing by a picture of Ruby Bridges, a black girl who desegregated a New Orleans school during the civil rights era, Bersin paraphrased a quote by anthropologist Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small, committed group of people will change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Carol Pike, an instructional leader, told Bersin, "You have every right to stand tall with awesome pride for everything that has happened in this district." She urged her colleagues to stay the course on what they believe is best for the children.

Hearst Elementary School Principal Robin Stern told Bersin she has a daughter who is "happy to be a blueprint baby."

The Blueprint for Student Success is Bersin's signature reform plan, which emphasizes literacy and math. Critics have characterized the plan as a one-size-fits-all strategy that stifled teachers' creativity.

Supporters say the blueprint represents a great step forward because it standardized instruction in city schools where a few hundred programs were in use.

"We have to be sure this work continues and that will be my work," Stern said.

The extensive teacher and principal training adopted under the blueprint was praised by all the principals who spoke yesterday. They told Bersin the training created a culture where teachers frequently have conversations about what works and what doesn't.

Monika Hazel, principal of Walker Elementary School, said the years she has spent with the district under Bersin's leadership have been the most fulfilling because she has grown professionally. "I want you to know you have helped me find my voice and form my vision," Hazel said.

Central Elementary Vice Principal Narciso Garcia spoke of being inspired by Bersin and touched by his caring side.

Garcia recounted how the superintendent visited him at his hospital bedside as he battled leukemia. "He sat next to me and said a lot of wonderful things to me that I will never forget," Garcia said.

Garcia told Bersin in a voice overtaken by emotion, "You are the father I didn't have." He said Bersin motivated him to get well by saying he had to survive for the schoolchildren.

"He still told me I had to get out of that bed and get better because of how my work is not finished," said Garcia, who later told of how Bersin, a former U.S. attorney, helped his sister from Brazil with her visa to come take care of him.

When Garcia finished speaking, Bersin walked up to him, and the two hugged.

Others told Bersin how much his leadership has inspired them, so much so that some have left other districts specifically to work for him.

Wilson Middle School Vice Principal Mariclaret Patton, who joined the district the same year as Bersin, unabashedly declared herself both a Bersin baby and a blueprint baby.

Glowing from the accolades he received from his administrators, Bersin later stood in front of a bank of television cameras for a question-and-answer session.

When asked about the controversy and divisiveness that have dogged him throughout his tenure, Bersin responded that he was hired to make changes in the interest of children, and changes inevitably result in friction because adults are affected.

"There were mistakes made. There were dozens and even hundreds of mistakes made, but never for the wrong reasons, because the focus needed to be shifted," he said. "It needed to be taken away from what adults wanted for their employment to what children needed for their education. That's going to lead to lots of tension and conflicts."

He said he became a lightening rod for controversy because he was the one who carried out the changes.

Despite his mistakes, Bersin believes history will validate his policies because they have raised test scores.

In a letter distributed to employees at the conference, Bersin cited city schools' improvement on the state's Academic Performance Index, compiled based on standardized tests.

On a scale of 200 to 1,000 with the target score set at 800, more than half of the city schools scored at or above 700 on the index. There are 107 schools at that level, compared with 75 schools in 1999.

Having raised test scores, Bersin said he felt he has accomplished what he set out to do for the district.

He said he also is proud that despite three years of drastic state budget cuts, the district has not laid off a single teacher and has a balanced budget and good bond rating, in contrast with City Hall's financial problems.

He said he has no specific plans for after he leaves the district, but intends to stay put in San Diego. Bersin's wife is Superior Court Judge Lisa Foster, who is also active in local politics.

Yesterday, Bersin wore to the principals' conference and the news conference the same gold and black tie he wore seven years ago when he interviewed for the superintendent job with the school board.

In other words, Bersin’s sycophantic supporters threw him a luncheon and sang his praises for a couple of hours. How on God’s green earth is that newsworthy? Team Unruly wonders if the fifteen principals who lost their jobs got an invitation with their damages check? Did the administrators from La Jolla attend? Of course, there’s the polite but minor nod to Bersin’s critics, but a lot of focus on Bersin raising test scores with nary a mention of his cooking the statistical books. What’s really disgusting is the flowery praise heaped upon Bersin in almost every paragraph: the mention of the standing ovation, the brainwash job with the Ruby Bridges backdrop, the Margaret Mead quote, the principal who claims to be proud her daughter is “a Blueprint baby” and, in a declaration that is far too Oedipal for this writer, calls herself a “Bersin baby.”

Nowhere does a reader find mention of the lawsuits, the book-cooking, the despotic behavior, or the exodus of Bersin detractors and the subsequent employee retention problems San Diego Unified now faces. Nor does the reporter mention what all our friends in San Diego have told us: most of those who attended the luncheon were hand-picked sycophants who patterned their administrative style after Bersin. All of them are worried that they too will soon find themselves looking for work elsewhere.

Unruly Advocate readers in the East Side will be happy to note that the article does settle the debate between which autocrat is worse, East Side’s Esperanza Zendejas or San Diego’s (now California’s) Alan Bersin. Vice-Principal Narciso Garcia battled leukemia and desperately tried to get his sister to come from Brazil to nurse him back to health. Bersin sat by his bedside and helped his sister obtain her visa! Wow! That’s a lot of compassion from a person who uses the media to humiliate his enemies.

And Zendejas? We’ll let Jon Fortt set the stage in this excerpt from Fortt’s article on the April board protest march, the largest board of trustees protest in San Jose’s history: “Zendejas [. . .] is a steely-eyed manager who during board meetings stoically endures insults from teachers, and remains expressionless to students sobbing about classroom cuts and teacher layoffs.” (read the whole article here: )

At this particular board meeting, a parent dying of cancer told the disgruntled crowd that she was outraged that the son she wouldn’t be able to see graduate stood to lose so many educational opportunities because of the district’s fiscal mismanagement. Zendejas “stoically endured” what others described as the most gut-wrenching moment of the whole protest. And don’t forget that while Zendejas was able to “remain expressionless” while a dying cancer patient spoke, she was shedding crocodile tears on the local news about how she adopted the corpses of two unidentified migrant workers to bury on her family plot in Michoacan. (read this month’s related article “news of the weird”—and watch the video too!)

Northern Californians have their share of matchbook school journalists too, and the danger they pose in what’s quickly becoming an information age lacking in information requires eternal vigilance by those of us willing to do the research. What did our lackluster editorialists at the San Jose Mercury News tell their readers about Bersin’s appointment? Read it and weep:

Secretary has some persuading to do
CHOICE SHOWS GOVERNOR IS SERIOUS ABOUT IMPROVING STATE'S SCHOOLS

Mercury News Editorial

Alan Bersin, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's new top education adviser, is a Democrat who went to law school with Hillary Clinton and has strong ties with the party.

As superintendent of schools in San Diego, Bersin pushed through his Blueprint for Student Success that changed the way schools are organized and has narrowed the gap in test scores between poor and well-off students.

Schwarzenegger's choice of Bersin to become both the secretary of education and a member of the state school board shows that the governor is committed to substantive reforms -- and that he knows he will need like-minded Democrats to create and pass them.

Bersin will bring order to education policies, and none too soon.

The governor's proposal on merit pay, which he has backed away from, is sound in concept but poorly designed. The coming initiative restricting teacher tenure also is flawed; it will lead to an expensive, divisive and distracting campaign. Reforms in how teachers are paid and how they are hired and fired should have been part of wider discussions with teachers, superintendents and advocates of change.

Bersin won't have an easy time. The secretary's job is advisory. His effectiveness will depend on his powers of persuasion. He'll have to do a lot of persuading to get Democrats in the Legislature to act independently of an obstructionist teachers union, which Bersin tangled with continuously in San Diego.

A former U.S. attorney, Bersin hadn't worked in education before taking the top job in San Diego. Particularly in his early years, his top-down -- some say autocratic -- management provoked criticism from teacher and parents. In January, after November elections, a new majority of trustees ousted him.

His mistakes were largely ones of style, not substance. He imposed a consistent curriculum throughout the district. His Blueprint emphasized literacy and math skills, particularly in the elementary grades; more training for teachers and principals; and school choice and school reorganization.

By this fall, the number of charter schools in San Diego will have tripled to 38 -- one-fifth of the district's schools. He broke three of the four largest high schools into 14 small schools, while giving principals more control in running them.

There were trade-offs. He financed mentor teachers by eliminating teacher aides -- a move that initially upset teachers. He cut electives in order to offer more remedial classes in math and English, upsetting parents in prosperous neighborhoods. But in elementary schools, test scores have risen significantly. There are signs of hope in restructured high schools. He had the support of a cadre of principals committed to change.

Bersin certainly understands the struggles of cash-strapped urban districts. In terms of money for schools, the governor is the one in need of education.

Bersin could be just the person to convince Californians, starting with his boss, that schools will do better if they are run differently and financed adequately.

(and here’s the link: )

Bersin wasn’t able to convince San Diego that his reforms would work, so he’ll be able to convince all Californians? That’s a fun piece of pretzel logic. “His mistakes were largely ones of style” like, we guess, his “top down—some say autocratic—management”? That’s the kind of style that California needs? Team Unruly is not so naïve to deny the Information Ministry at the Mercury News their right to an opinion, but they’ve got a heavy penance to pay for their sins of omission. Let the people know about the lawsuit, the reasons behind the autocratic charge, the altering of the test score data or just how much Bersin “understands the struggles of cash-strapped urban districts” (Bersin was accused of hiring lots of high-priced consultants and received a large salary increase himself, only to tell the teacher’s union that same year that there was no money to increase their salaries).

It’s this type of lax journalism that leaves Team Unruly with two burning questions: what matchbook school of journalism did these writers graduate from, and did they have to draw a picture of “Lucky” to get in?