Candidate for
Board Member; San Juan Unified School District

ISSUES
1. All students must read, write, and speak English

2. School & Street Safety: Demands safe schools and streets, free of gangs, drugs and weapons

3. Support standardized statewide testing

• Communicate standards to parents in order to support classroom instruction

• Make sure that all instructional materials are standards based

• Ensure that all personnel are adequately trained to help students meet the standards

• Advocate for a clear, consistent and fair student assessment system aligned to the standards

• improve the use of measures and measurement systems in the management of schools

• Children excel when they are held to high standards

• Establish clear lines of authority commensurate with responsibility

• Ensure that incentives and consequences are adequate and are consistent with the goals.

• Continue to support open enrollment and enhanced choice

• Increase access to information

• Reduce bureaucracy and promoting innovation and creativity at both the district and site level.

Standards: Set clear goals for what students should know. Our district has adopted clear learning standards that specify what students should know and be able to do at every grade level in the areas of Mathematics, Science, English, and Social Sciences. Learning standards ensure students are keeping up with their peers. Common standards also help to select textbooks, design lesson plans, and guide teacher preparation.

Teachers: Entice the best and brightest to lead and teach in our schools. Once standards are in place, the training provided to new and continuing teachers must ensure that teachers and school leaders have the skills needed to help students succeed. SJUSD must continue to invest resources to make every effort to ensure that SJUSD has the best teachers working in its classrooms.

Education should be a top government priority. The government should support strict standards in education, including student testing and effective teacher evaluation. The educational curriculum must achieve success on the core academic disciplines of reading, writing and math. There should be no social promotion for students, incompetent teachers should be dismissed, and competent teachers should receive a decent and fair salary.

Testing: Measure progress to ensure students are learning. California students are now tested annually to measure how well children and schools are doing in meeting learning goals. Test results are made public so parents, educators and the general public can know how well kids and our schools are doing.

Accountability: Hold schools accountable for results while increasing flexibility for how the job gets done. California's accountability system expects all schools to make measurable progress every year. Rewards and incentives are tied to progress and results are reported publicly every year. With such accountability in place, we must petition our legislators to provide more flexibility from bureaucracy and over-regulation. . Parents, principals, and teachers, not federal bureaucrats know best how to deal with local education needs.

There is strong public support for the state's strategy of higher standards, student testing and accountability. The public welcomes changes that set higher expectations for students and ensures that all students and schools are accountable for performance. But we must finish the job. While the cornerstones for this common sense system of standards and accountability are now in place, the harder job is to ensure that our district stays the course long enough for students to benefit. Our students must be given the tools they need to succeed in today's workforce.