Dear supporters and correspondents,
The Star
has extensively covered, through a news story and editorial, the
board’s 3-2 vote on November 14 to ask the Human Resources Dept. to
review the pay grade of the Director of Staff Services. This is
currently the only TUSD employee, other than the superintendent, who
reports solely and directly to the board.
The
news story and editorial both cast the vote as retaliation for the
employee’s old harassment complaint against Rachael Sedgwick. Because
the complaint was amicably settled, months ago, I did not anticipate the
interpretation as retaliation. That was obviously a misjudgment;
providing more information, earlier, could have helped to forestall that
interpretation. I suggested the salary review because of TUSD’s
unexpectedly difficult budget situation and longstanding questions about
the pay grade of that position. Other administrative positions face
similar questions, and a superintendent-initiated review recently
reduced the pay grade of a senior position within his purview.
On Sunday the Star published a response from me, which provides more details. I have attached the published oped.
I appreciate that the Star
allowed me to respond, but I was surprised to see that the editors
deleted many sentences from my submission, affecting its tone and
substance (without notifying me). They removed positive statements about
TUSD’s potential future and its reform effort. Then, ironically, they
removed criticism of the Star’s tendency to ignore the reform
effort and TUSD's major policy issues. Is the newspaper, which finds
plenty of space to attack the board repeatedly, so short of space or
unsure of its ground that it must censor responses?
Discussing
leadership's efforts to address TUSD's big policy and budget issues,
whether or not the newspaper agrees with specific proposals, would do
more to help the district and its students than continually focusing on
personality conflicts and viewing every issue through that lens.
Thanks for your interest in TUSD. The rest of this note contains the oped as originally submitted. The portions that the Star chose not to print are in red.
- Mark
******
Sarah
Gassen (11/19) criticizes the TUSD board’s recent 3-2 vote to request
its Human Resources Department to review the pay grade of the Director
of Staff Services. This is currently the only employee (aside from the
superintendent) who reports solely and directly to the board. She
portrays this action as vindictive.
This ignores the context of the vote.
The
new board and superintendent have recently eliminated five senior
administrative positions and reduced the salaries of several others.
None of those changes has touched the board office, which is apart from
the superintendent and solely the board's responsibility. The board's
action is a first step toward checking the expense of that office.
Salary reviews are a standard procedure; a superintendent-initiated
review led to one of the recent salary reductions.
The
board's action is warranted because it is unusual for a Director-level
position to have only two subordinates. (The position's salary of
$79,000 also exceeds the maximum on the teachers' pay scale.) I expect
the board to respect the judgment of the HR department.
Gassen,
while ignoring the recent administrative reductions, portrays this
action as retaliatory, because the affected Director filed a complaint
against one board member earlier this year. That complaint was resolved
amicably months ago, long before we learned that TUSD lost about 1,100
students year-over-year and must cut millions of dollars mid-year. The
board cannot expect massive cuts from the rest of the administration,
while refusing to contemplate an internal review that many in TUSD
consider long overdue.
The
huge budget shortfall implies much more to come. The board and
superintendent agree that deep cuts should come from administrative
positions rather than instruction. Scores or perhaps hundreds of
positions face scrutiny, including the lower-ranked positions within the
board office. The process will be painful, though everyone in
leadership will work to minimize the pain and allocate it fairly.
Ignoring
this larger context, Gassen spends two paragraphs extolling the work of
the Director of Staff Services. Such position-by-position praise for
TUSD’s administrators could fill countless pages. Yet such isolated
analysis ignores the acute aggregate budget problem. The
cold choice between cutting instruction and cutting administration
means that even the meritorious will feel pain, sometimes through
increased responsibilities.
By
electing Rachael Sedgwick, a fresh candidate with a reform agenda,
Tucson acknowledged TUSD’s need for big changes. The question now is not
whether the new board will go too far, but whether it is willing to go
far enough.
Sedgwick
and I proposed in April that TUSD increase its instructional spending
to 50% (still far below the 58.3% average of its six large peer Arizona
districts), with further increases in subsequent years. This resolution
could not gain a third vote. We have likewise failed in other attempts
to trim unnecessary non-instructional spending. Yet the new board has
shown courage and made progress in some areas. Dr. Trujillo's
appointment has, in itself, led to some significant improvements.
I
continue to believe that TUSD has tremendous unexploited potential.
Tucson will judge, through next year's election, whether the new board
has made enough progress toward the huge changes necessary to reach that
potential.
The Star's editorial page has, meanwhile, largely ignored these reform efforts and the hard budget and policy choices confronting TUSD. Its occasional forays into TUSD affairs focus on personalities and real or exaggerated internal conflicts. Here
is news: most of the community hardly cares about the personalities on
the board. They care about its decisions and how those decisions help or
hurt its schools.
The
Star could have better used the same editorial space, weeks ago, to
discuss the bond and override measures that four local districts put to
the voters. Instead it remained conspicuously silent. It is apparently
easier to spot one bottle among the acres of educational issues, and
throw a rock at it.
