Dear John,
Listening to you discuss your short time in the district during yesterday’s press conference announcing your resignation as Tucson Unified School District Superintendent — the incredible challenges you and your staff faced; the wounds inflicted on them; the needless drama that slowed the district in dealing with real matters; the governing board that often seemed unwilling to work together — it’s hard to feel more than a twinge of sympathy because, ultimately, it didn’t have to be that way, baby.
Folks like to say that this wasn’t really a local issue, especially when pointing out the contentious public comments and protests that have taken place in the past. The argument runs something like this: People pouring their hearts into supporting Mexican-American Studies were going after the wrong folks, and not targeting the people really behind this issue: Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne and Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal.
“After all, this is Tucson,” the argument continues, “and Phoenix is trying to annex us to be Baja Crazyland — those are the bad people; we’re the good people!” is how it’s always been explained. But one of the lessons learned during the height of the fight for MAS is that it’s really hard to distinguish between those in Crazyland and those who knew better, but couldn’t see the benefits to offering students choices in their literature, history and government perspectives classes.
They seemed to easily embrace other progressive causes in Tucson, but just as easily ignored the packs of students who showed up to meeting after meeting, begging for the school board and district to protect their classes from the Crazyland-ers.
Another lesson: When it comes to racially charged issues, it’s hard to find real leadership in Tucson. It didn’t have to be that way, John. You could have guided us through that process with a gentle hand. You could have been that champion, inspiring a board to do the same, rather than wilt away or be taken in by local charlatans who passed them John Birch-type material on cults or were inspired by those who preached the Evils Of Pedicone.
No, those things didn’t have to happen. Look: I have no doubt that TUSD governing board president Adelita Grijalva was speaking her truth when she described the gains and achievements of your administration during yesterday’s press conference, John. I’ve seen the good as a TUSD parent, and that means I’ve also seen the bad.
John, if it’s true that you were finally driven to resign because of frustration with the board, I don’t blame you. It is challenging to hear Grijalva lament about the difficultly in being a school board member, balancing its politics and figuring whether or not to support the work of the district’s top administrator. In her 10 years with the district, she’s gone through five superintendents. What does it take for a school board member to get it, too? What’s it going to take for the current school board to get it?
Even my son, who has attended plenty of board meetings, lamented that it couldn’t all be John Pedicone’s fault. He’s right, of course. But boy, what a lesson in hubris this has been. Sorry you and your staff were wounded John, but there are members of the community, members that you said are so special to you, still struggling with what’s taken place the past two years — struggling with their own wounds.
Arrogance hasn’t been a friend to TUSD. Remember May 3, when TUSD’s administration building was surrounded by more than 100 Tucson Police Department cops? When a passionate crowd assembled inside the packed school board room to defend the MAS program, surrounded by a handful of police dressed in riot gear? Seven people were arrested and cited with disorderly conduct. The image of you, John, volleying glances with then-TUSD governing board president Mark Stegeman on whom and whom not to arrest remains with many there that night.
Then, of course, there’s the image of watching activist and educator Guadalupe Castillo surrounded and escorted out by those same riot-geared police — the slow walk out of the board room because, remember, she needs a cane in each hand in order to walk.
It didn’t have to be that way, John. It really didn’t. But it wasn’t until Huppenthal issued his final decision that made some scratch their heads and really wonder how things get done. You and your staff must have seen that final decision coming; you must have had some plan in place, right? But after the board voted to dismantle MAS and it was directed that the classes be turned into regular English, history and government classes, a steady plan must have been in place…right?
Of course not. Books were taken out of the classrooms in front of students — boxed, marked “banned,” and shipped to a warehouse, only to later be returned to libraries. The national attention hurt. Accusations of banned books hurt then, and still hurt today. Sure, this is hindsight, and sure, it was a challenge.
But really, it shouldn’t surprise you that people came prepared to fight for their schools at the closure hearings. They came to fight for what they had left. They came to fight for a goodness that remained that didn’t get completely taken away.
So, sure, tell the new administrator we’re ready. Lessons have been learned. Confidence shaken. A new understanding.
Sincerely,
Mari
This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2013.
Way, way more to the District’s challenges then the one issue you focus on. There’s the geography involved, the variety of demographics involved, the lack of significant parental involvement, declining enrollment, increasing costs, lousy teachers mucking it up for ALL teachers, Board members having no business management experience, Board members responding to squeaky wheels, and yes, Board members way too involved in day-to-day management.
TUSD is too big. You can’t be all things to all people. Break it up.
IKD is correct, from an operations perspective, the running of buses over so many miles is a big drain on the operating budgets. Weekly should do a study on the operations cost of transportation over so big an area. You’d be shocked!
Have to say though I was hired by Dr. Pedicone at Flowing Wells, he is a fine man and was your best bet to put this together. In the real world, the board is smarter than you. At IBM, they’re engineers, businessmen, leaders. On my board at Harris County Transit (Houston) were civil engineers, leaders, knowledgeable people. In a school district it’s a hair dresse, a retired librarian, and maybe someone who owns a Taco Bell!
Supposedly Adelita Grijalva wanted Pedicone to take orders from her, and he didn’t consult her on decisions he made. (I don’t think he is required to or should). Adelita also forced Manzo to accept becoming a charter school without understanding what that means, in exchange for immunity from being closed.
Adelita used one of her gophers, Paul Cunningham to try to make a deal with Sewell to shut us up. We, (teachers and parents), rejected this under the table offer that Adelita probably wasn’t legally able to make in the first place. Doesn’t make sense for a B school like Sewell that will be an A school some day and is a TUSD gem. So, I think Adelita is exercising authority that she doesn’t have, such as when she announced that the board will begin immediately looking for a replacement and will spend at least $25,000 or something to that effect. Uh, board hasn’t met yet and can’t meet privately, and she doesn’t speak for the whole board.
I don’t know who Guadalupe Castillo is, but she appears to be elderly and a professor. Of course she should be allowed to speak at a TUSD board meeting, and the police should not manhandle her as obviously a fall at her age could lead to a broken hip. The image of her arrest is superficially disturbing, but of course if somebody disrupts a public meeting then they can be arrested and removed. Even a 110 year old church organ player can be arrested if they disrupt a public meeting! I think it is good that they went slow as I think it would be horrible if they pushed a handicapped person too fast when ejected from a meeting. If the police harmed her then they should have been immediately arrested themselves and should be fired.
I would think twice about removing a senior citizen from a public meeting by force unless they were truly being disruptive (and I’d give them seconds and third chances to calm down to a senior citizen, but that’s just me). Being disruptive could include continuing to talk after being asked to stop. No private citizen no matter how much gravitas does not have a right to disrupt a meeting. Don’t know the facts, wasn’t there, pure speculation, but figure that Pedicone does have a hair trigger for silencing discord from whatever quarter.
@ Anonymous –
As you say, “Don’t know the facts, wasn’t there, pure speculation, but figures (sic) that Pedicone does have a hair trigger . . .”
You admit you know nothing, you saw nothing, and you are just guessing.
Why don’t you just continue to stay home? That was lame.
Cranky Cowboy, can you provide specific examples of “Board members way too involved in day-to-day management”?
Once an organization reaches a certain size, its efficiency tends to drop dramatically. This is true of most human endeavors. There are ways to postpone this, but the public is rarely well served by them.
Mexican American Studies as taught in the Tucson schools was one of the most destructive things I’ve ever seen. It was destructive to the district, destructive to the community, destructive to the country, and destructive to the students themselves.
The world does not revolve around the dismantled MAS program. The so-called “packs of students” demanding protection for MAS were never more than a tiny percentage of TUSD students. The real problems with TUSD had much more to do with a budget that favored the administration over the classroom, that pushed too many kids through without learning enough, or pushed them out of school altogether.
This is not all of Pedicone’s fault, but he did little or nothing to fix the problems. In short, it was his failure to lead TUSD into being a better educational organization that is his legacy. The whole sorry story of the failed MAS program is just a footnote.
As Frank Antenori stated on “Arizona Illustrated Politics” tonight, MAS was negative curriculum, focusing only on how “victimized” mexican americans have been and are. This encouraged a poisonous, treasonous, and racist attitude in young mexican americans. We all remember a few years ago the masses of mexican american students protesting waving the mexican flag. Shrewd supremacist groups such as La Raza quickly schooled young people not to do this as it revealed too clearly the TRUE agenda of the racist movement. Tom Horne, John Pedicone and others were completely correct in their assessment and action regarding MAS/
The Mexicans can have TUSD. They fold easy, after all they settled for the southside.
I’m sorry. That last comment was uncalled for. I certainly don’t want to have a post removed. So, we’ll give the Mexicans El Paso as well.
I just read this after all this time and we knowing John, this is the most idiotic thing this paper has written to this date.
I doubt that. Have you read it lately?