Open Letter to the New PUSD Superintendent
(08/26/2011)
Jon
R. Gundry
Superintendent,
PUSD
351
South Hudson Avenue
Pasadena,
CA 91109
Dear
Mr. Gundry,
My
name is Bruce Wasson. My wife and I have been PUSD parents
for 16 years and will likely remain so for another 5 years.
With
considerable effort, my wife and I have secured a reasonable
education for our special needs son at PUSD. We have found
that like all large organizations, PUSD has had its share
of wonderful employees and is held back by some regrettable
hires. Due to our time on task, my wife and I have been
able to mitigate at least some of the years in which our
son had less than stellar teachers.
But
none of this concerns me. What troubles me today and at
all times are the many PUSD parents who cannot intervene
the way my wife and I can.
Years
ago, PUSD became the first and perhaps the only public
school system outside the Deep South to actively resist
desegregation. Typical of PUSD's stubborn character then
and now, desegregation was resisted all the way to the
US Supreme Court, where PUSD ultimately lost
Today
we are at a similar crossroads. Whenever I've stood outside
my son's middle school at the end of his school day, I've
grieved with the recognition that every 3rd child who
passed by me will not graduate from high school. I've
similarly been grieved by the recognition that most of
the rest will graduate with 8th grade skills, entering
an economy that stopped creating jobs for that skill level
long before the Great Recession began. And yet the activities
that reliably bring every general education child to grade
level proficiency quickly regardless of family background
have been known to professional educators for years. These
activities are highly inconvenient to the adults involved,
particularly the educators. And while these activities
are not well known among the general public, like desegregation,
they one day will be.
The
question in my mind today is what will PUSD do in response
to these activities that have become well known? Will
PUSD put itself at the leading edge of change, or will
it stubbornly resist as it did with desegregation? The
current picture is not encouraging. With the exception
of a single item with the vague description "children
first", the 33 criteria for hiring the new superintendent
were clearly about keeping peace among the adult employees.
When the differences between PUSD's hiring criteria and
those of school systems that routinely close the achievement
gap were shared during PUSD's window for parent input,
nothing changed.
This
does not mean I am without hope. Organizations that began
in the same Houston Independent School District that you
came from, namely KIPP:Houston and Yes! Prep; have shown
public school systems across the USA how to close the
achievement gap quickly and get every general education
child to grade level proficiency. So while the criteria
for selecting PUSD’s newest superintendent was once
again focused on adult needs and not those of our children,
I eagerly await hearing from you regarding what your past
adjacency to these organizations will tell us about what
we can expect from PUSD in the coming years.
Sincerely,
Bruce
Wasson
Altadena
Postscript: Mr. Gundry has been given three opportunities to respond to the contents of this letter: once in person before this letter was written, a second time upon his receipt of this letter via USPS, and a third time in person afterwards. Consistent with the Superintendent hiring priorities PUSD chose not to revise – even after soliciting parent input – Mr. Gundry has dismissed the public schools that close the academic achievement gap as aberrations, despite all evidence to the contrary.
