Chance to Reshape School Board : Scott Harvey and Sue Braun are clear choices for important district posts

School board elections often force voters to choose from among unknown candidates with few distinguishing stands on key issues. Not this year.

It’s tough to confuse the candidates in the District C race for San Diego school trustee. The differences between them make Scott Harvey the clear choice for this important post.

While the distinctions between District B candidates Sue Braun and Lynette Williams aren’t as dramatic, Braun’s more progressive bent and superior experience make her far more qualified for the job.

In District C, Harvey favors the much needed school-based health clinics (but supports each community’s right to choose whether they dispense contraceptives). His opponent, teacher John de Beck, does not. Harvey supports school integration programs; De Beck does not.

Harvey has helped site child-care facilities on a school campus and wants to continue working for more of them. He proposes to broaden the curriculum to make it more relevant to the city’s increasing population of ethnic minorities. A lobbyist by profession, he wants the school board to be more active in Sacramento.

Some of De Beck’s iconoclasm and blunt talk about rethinking educational priorities is refreshing. But he suffers from the perception that, as a former teachers union leader, he would be too closely allied with the school system’s main labor force to bring a balanced perspective to his role as trustee. All five current board members have endorsed Harvey.

Sue Braun, who is making her second run for the school board, offers a platform a bit heavy on generalities. She has trouble explaining how she’ll achieve her laudable goal of retaining more teachers.

But Braun believes that to curb the dropout rate, school resources must be focused on building students’ self-esteem as early as kindergarten. And she proposes to put more aides in classrooms to help handle escalating class sizes.

Braun has broader and more sophisticated knowledge about the district’s needs than neophyte Williams. A former teacher, Williams lists improving literacy rates, increasing the relevancy of the high school curriculum and character building as her top goals. She opposes school-based health clinics.

With no incumbents running in this year’s elections, voters have the opportunity to reshape 40% of the school board. These four candidates offer them a wide range of views and, we believe, clear choices for the future of the city’s education system.