This past week, Q-line asked: What major problems does the new superintendent need to address within the district?
“What are the major problems facing the new school superintendent in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District?” — ✆
Here are your responses: ✆“As Santa Monica’s only daily newspaper — if the Santa Monica Daily Press has to ask this question, than the press has not been reading its own newsprint. I personally have no idea what it will take to shape up Santa Monica College, but if superintendent (School Superintendent John) Deasy is heading East, contrary to Horace Greeley’s advise to ‘Head West Young Man’ — than I suspect the new superintendent will have his hands full and running over.” ✆“The major problem in the school district is overcrowding. A conferred effort needs to be made to root out and throw out the so-called students who are nothing but troublemakers who will not learn or cannot learn for one reason or another. They are stuffed into the schools for the simple reason that head count generates revenue. Too bad about the children and young people who are there to learn and have a pleasant school experience growing up. Put the others in boot camps, special schools or jails where they belong and keep the parents out of the decision-making process. Enough is enough. Why not keep the well-qualified assistant, who is now the interim superintendent? Why another search for a replacement?” ✆“The problems the superintendent will face is too many troublemakers, too many kids who do not belong in a regular school but belong in a reform school. And another problem he is facing is not enough money. So whoever they are, it should be someone who has no connections with the LAUSD — the Los Angeles Unified School District — because those people are all incompetent fools.” ✆“Leadership in this district is abysmal, which happens to facilitate the laziness of staff. Both certified and classified education needs to be run as a business, where people are held accountable and high scoring test results are mandatory. Most of all, school administrators need to access the weakness within their own hierarchy and replace those who lack hard-working, Wal- Mart-style work ethics. Discipline, responsibility and high test scores to prepare students for the harsh reality of life should be the goal.” ✆“With Deasy leaving, this would be the perfect time to split this now illegal, noncontinuous, joint school district so that Santa Monicans do not have to continue to subsidize Malibu’s schools.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 4, 2006. Read the original PDF.