Christina Vance, The Bee's education reporter, has a story today pointing out that the race for four seats on the Fresno School Board is already the most expensive with more than a week to go until balloting. The race has passed the $338,000 mark.

This is a fundamental electiion for control of the school board. No matter where you stand on the candidates, let your voices be heard on Nov. 7. Here's The Bee's story on the school board campaign.

The Fresno Unified School District is trying to turn around a troubled school system that in the past has been more concerned about serving the adult employees than the students who were failing. That attitude is changing, but the district could return to its tired old ways of doing things if some of the union-backed candidates get elected.

Posted by Jim Boren at 9:21 AM | Permalink

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is following Fresno Mayor Alan Autry in trying to take over the school system in his community. While Autry failed to get the support to change the law, Villaraigosa has a much better chance of getting a special bill passed in the Legislature because he's the former speaker of the California Assembly and still has plenty of pals in Sacramento.

No matter. It's still a bad idea. Here's my column in today's Bee in which I point out the problems with Villaraigosa's effort to take over the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Villaraigosa, like Autry before him, can help the schools by doing his job as mayor. School test scores follow the poverty line. Improve the economic plight of Los Angeles and it will help the children of L.A. Unified.

Is the city of Los Angeles running so smoothly that Villaraigosa can now turn his attention to the Los Angeles school system? Tell that to all the people complaining about City Hall's lack of responsiveness to their problems.

Posted by Jim Boren at 9:41 PM | Permalink

Fresno Mayor Alan Autry says he will sue the state Legislature if it gives Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa power over L.A. schools after he was denied similar power over Fresno schools. There are so many holes in Autry's position, it's difficult to figure which part of his reasoning should be attacked first.

Let's start with suing the Legislature. Go ahead, but you better not be using taxpayer money. That would be a colossal waste -- intended to serve the mayor's ego and not the citizens of Fresno.

Fix Fresno's problems first before you take on school district issues. Besides, a reform-minded school board is on the right track with the help of a new superintendent in Fresno. Stop pulling the rug out from under them and give them a chance to succeed.

If the mayor should control the Fresno school district, what about Clovis Unified? Much of it is in the city of Fresno. But Clovis parents have too much clout and the mayor apparently is afraid of taking them on. But where's your consistency, mayor? While you're at it, you should be screaming to take over Central Unified, too, because part of that district is in Fresno.

Sure, the public schools have problems, but those are not going to be solved by putting a politician in charge of the school system.

If the mayor wants to help the schools, he should create jobs so children aren't growing up in poverty. He should improve their neighborhoods so they are safe. He should control the drug problem that's hurting so many of our children.

Villaraigosa should take the same advice: fix Los Angeles before taking on the L.A. schools. Your city is a mess, Mayor Villaraigosa. Why are you ignoring it?

There is a lot both mayors could do for the schools in their cities. But please stop pandering to those who believe that there are easy answers to solving the problems of our schools.

Posted by Jim Boren at 3:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The last week of school, my oldest daughter, Alyssa, received an unexpected honor at her school, Reyburn Intermediate in Clovis. Already an award-winning straight-A student, she got the highest honor in her elective, journalism. This makes her a third-generation journalist in our family.

Her mother and father, Yolanda and Denny Boyles, were both journalists in the U.S. Navy, and her father and I both work here at the paper. One of her grandfathers -- my father, James Dorman -- was also a Navy journalist, the editor-in-chief of the Bremerhaven Windjammer.

Journalism isn’t necessarily something you think of as a family business. But it made us proud, nonetheless. We didn’t push Alyssa to pursue that direction, but she has, for now, and seems to be enjoying it. She’s young and it’s possible that she’ll end up going 15 other directions before she settles on a career path. And that’s OK too. For whatever she ends up doing – all of our children – we just want her (them) to be happy with the path they’ve chosen.

Posted by Lisa Maria Boyles at 9:18 AM | Permalink

One of the most important lessons young people can take away from high school is to be involved in the democratic process, which means voting in every election. Yet between Fresno County and Tulare County schools, there are no fewer than nine graduation ceremonies scheduled for today, which is also a statewide primary election day.

I will be attending Clovis West’s graduation tonight at Buchanan’s stadium. I voted by absentee ballot, so my votes went out in the mail last week. But how much will poor planning impact what is already expected to be a dismally low voter turnout?

Posted by Lisa Maria Boyles at 10:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In the past few weeks, I have spent more hours than I care to think about at school awards ceremonies.

Don't get me wrong - I go because I am proud of my children's accomplishments, proud collectively of what our young people are doing. I just wish that when school administrators and teachers plan these events they would be a little more respectful of all the demands on parents' and families' time.

The average running time for these things seems to be about 90 minutes. And since they are always clumped together at the end of the semester or school year, with three school-aged children who are all high achievers in one area or another, these 90-minute chunks add up.

Even when students are urged to give just one enthusiastic clap as each name is called (to prevent the clap-fest from turning into a popularity contest), the hundreds of honors awarded add up.

These are hours I spent shushing my wriggly, restless 3-year-old instead of reading her stories to enrich her mind. These are days when I spent rushing from work to school, eating later than planned, dining on leftovers or fast-food instead of healthy, home-cooked meals. These are hours the siblings who attend with us could be doing their homework or studying for important final exams. Or, when these are held during the school day, these are hours the students could be in the classrooms, learning even more.

Then there are the teachers who feel they must go on for five or 10 minutes about the accomplishments of a single student (again, I'm certain the students are deserving of this). But all of the parents who are missing work or skipping dinner don't really need to know that little Johnny met with this club every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m.

To put it in perspective, some of these teachers' laudatory speeches go on longer than valedictory students' speeches are allowed to be, after 12 outstanding years of student achievement.

Or to look at it another way, I recently attended a dinner for this year's Dean's Medallion winners from Fresno State's graduating class. The dean with whom we dined at our table told us that they had been given strict orders to keep their comments to two or three sentences per recipient.

Honor our students. Recognize their achievements. But remember also that we need time to celebrate as a family, to get to our jobs done, to spend time around the dinner table with our busy overachievers.

Keep it simple. Keep it short. Maybe put all of your kind words into a nice letter or certificate suitable for framing, which can be savored by the student and family members for years to come. I don't think I'm the only parent who would appreciate the thoughtfulness.

Posted by Lisa Maria Boyles at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

In the Letters to the Editor section, we don't print open letters. But I though this blog space might be OK for this letter from a second-grade little girl in Sandusky, Ohio.

"Dear residents of California,
My second-grade class at Furry Elementary School is learning about the United States. I need your help with a special project we are doing called Picture America. We are trying to collect postcards from each state. If you would like to help me with this class project please send me a postcard showing an interesting or important feature of your state. Thank you for helping me.
Sincerely,
Raven Ryan
310 Douglas Drive
Sandusky, OH 44870"

Raven's letter was accompanied by a letter from Kelley A. Sumner, her teacher. Sumner wrote: "This puts a personal touch to our geography studies, lets students practice letter writing, and hopefully allows them to receive personal mail, which they love!"

And in case anyone is worried that I'm broadcasting this little girl's address all over the blogosphere, the address is for her school, not her home. I think it'd be cool for Raven to get some mail from other places to add to their class project.

Posted by Lisa Maria Boyles at 5:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)