By Megan Burks
[Editor’s Note: Field Guide is a weekly email bringing you the news, explainers and action items needed to navigate your changing community. Click here to subscribe.]
|
Shortly before Mayor Jerry Sanders splashed renderings of a new football stadium and convention center before a Balboa Theatre audience Jan. 11, mayoral candidates Carl DeMaio and Nathan Fletcher headed to City Heights to send a decidedly different message.
Both appeared at a “State of the Inner City Address” hosted by Reality Changers, a nonprofit that helps low-income students get into college. Appealing to the working class who live beyond the downtown redevelopment area, both spoke about how they might improve the path to higher education for inner city youth.
On Education
Their discussion was fairly new territory for a mayor’s race. San Diego’s leader is traditionally hands-off when it comes to schools.
But a shrinking education budget – San Diego schools could be more than $72 million short next year – and a growing trend of mayors dipping their hands into the classroom have forced candidates to do their homework on schools.
Though test scores have been rising in City Heights, many neighborhood schools are failing. Funding for special programs have been cut, forcing local nonprofits to step in and fund interventions for at-risk youth. Many district bus routes that helped families without cars and students who choose to attend schools outside of the neighborhood have been cut.
How will the candidates lift local schools up? And does our next mayor belong in the school board’s kitchen to begin with?
What the Candidates Say
Councilman Carl DeMaio has erred on the side of fewer cooks. He told Reality Changers the mayor “should focus on cleaning up the city’s financial house before telling other government agencies how to do their business,” according to KPBS. Last year, he told voiceofsandiego.org that government inefficiencies are ultimately to blame for budget cuts and poor test scores. He drew from his past as a businessman, saying he would encourage the school board to adopt cost-saving measures. He also said he would further support job-training opportunities for youth such as the San Diego Workforce Partnership’s Hire-A-Youth program.
Last year, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis told voiceofsandiego.org the mayor has no authority over the school board, but that she would use her position to advocate for students. This year, she rolled out a bold plan that would give the mayor’s office significant control over the school board. She proposed adding four more members to the five-person board. She would appoint those new members with help from the community. She also proposed creating an independent oversight committee for district finances and a new department to facilitate communication between city government and the school district.
Congressman Bob Filner isn’t nearly as exact as Dumanis when it comes to laying out his plans for education. Voters, instead, must look to his career as school board president, professor and congressman. Filner has been a strong supporter of the federal DREAM Act, which would grant undocumented students conditional legal status and college financial aid. He’s spoken out against No Child Left Behind for its “one-size-fits-all” testing and adverse effects on teachers and curriculum. Presently, his plans include providing after school programs to benefit students and their working parents.
Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher has yet to release a detailed plan on education, but he has been clear that the mayor must work with local schools to turn San Diego into the “Word’s Most Innovative City.” Fletcher’s cornerstone economic plan aims to grow San Diego’s technology industry, and that requires an education system that produces workers groomed for the job. He said it is also a moral obligation “to ensure that every child in San Diego – regardless of their race or parents’ income level – has access to the American Dream” of a quality education. Fletcher, however, voted against both bills that make up California’s Dream Act.
Miss last week’s installment of City Heights and the Mayor’s Race? Read it here.