A Teacher Who Offers Something Worth Learning

SAN FRANCISCO —  Sitting through Assembly Speaker Willie Brown’s education summit, I remembered why I never liked school.

Extracurricular activities, great; classes, get me out of here.

Too many teachers and principals--and professors in later years--were elitist, self-righteous, humorless windbags. They droned on and on, spewing dry data and mouthing an uncommon form of English, causing my eyes to glaze and ears to punch mute. They used uninspiring, overblown words and phrases such as “categorical,” and “coordinated approach.” These days, you hear a lot of “governance,” “paradigm” and “site-based management.”

On Wednesday, I even heard an educator/bureaucrat say “continuum.”

There also was that irksome preaching. You’re not using your full capabilities . At the summit, it was try harder to come up with more tax money .

Add to these traits some self-promotion and mix it all with a seemingly endless series of boring lectures--virtually no dialogue, let alone debate--and that’s too much of what the two-day education summit was about.

The format was flawed: Seven sessions, each averaging five speechmaking “presenters,” followed by 20 “panelists” with prepared remarks, much of it repetitive. A monotonous overload for the audience of 1,000 and potential home/school TV viewership of up to 6 million.

But don’t blame Brown entirely. A natural showman, the San Francisco Democrat occasionally livened things up with his humor. And several times he tried to kick the panelists into gear. “Those of us who know everything let you know we know everything,” he once told the audience, chiding some tedious speakers. By Wednesday, he was admonishing panelists to be “relevant” and “react” to the presenters--with little success.

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So, there was a lot to be cynical about at this second so-called summit in 10 days--the first being Gov. Pete Wilson’s convocation on crime in Hollywood. But as with the governor’s summit, Brown’s was worthwhile because it forced legislators and other decision-makers to focus on California’s beleaguered schools for two days.

Public education was supposed to have gotten a “wake-up call” to reform from last year’s school voucher campaign. But it shut off the alarm with a $16-million anti-voucher sledgehammer and then dozed off.

The Establishment got another wake-up call Wednesday from Terry M. Moe, a Stanford University professor and articulate leader of the voucher movement. Moe predicted that no major reforms will be passed by the Legislature because the California Teachers Assn. “is the biggest spending lobby in this state” and lawmakers “take their (political) lives in their hands” when they cross the union.

Therefore, he forecast a new voucher initiative for 1996 and warned: “It won’t look like Proposition 174. . . . It will be pitched at the broad middle of the (voter) spectrum and this thing is going to be popular. And the CTA is going to get a run for its money.”

That probably was the summit’s most provocative speech. But there were some others. New Senate leader Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) suggested revising Proposition 13, the sacrosanct property tax cutter, to raise more local funds for schools. Retiring Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara) proposed a five-year commitment to increase state funding by $6 billion annually, thereby boosting California’s spending on schools to the nation’s average.

For that to happen, there would need to be a significant economic upturn and probably a Democratic governor.

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But the summit star was not a politician, a professor, a union leader or an administrator. She was a teacher. In fact, California’s present Teacher of the Year.

Sandra McBrayer, 33, began a public school for homeless children in downtown San Diego six years ago. And her speech--unlike so many others--was riveting. She talked about “children who are gay and are beaten before they’re kicked out of their homes. Children who are pregnant and are told as long as you’re pregnant, you can’t stay here. . . . Children who are sold into prostitution by their parents.”

The teacher continued, “I buried another child on Friday. She was 14; tried to get away from her pimp, and he shot her five times. . . . I have an expectation that every child can learn.”

Turning to Brown, McBrayer said: “We know how to fix it, but now we have to start taking action. . . . Education is not about textbooks or ADA. It is about caring about children.”

Listening to McBrayer also reminded me of the good teachers I’d had. They weren’t all babbling nerds. And they’re right--we probably could and should find them some more money.