Little doubt that education is one of today’s hottest political topics.
Candidates for mayor of America’s Finest City even managed to weave the buzz-worthy issue into their platforms.
Tomorrow, a forum promises to delve head-first into the matter and answer the one question which seems to come up time and again:
What’s the mayor got to do with education?
For more details, be sure to check out the news release below.
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Mayoral Forum on Education Will Explore Role of Mayor in San Diego’s Public Schools
3.29.12
Melissa Wagoner
mwagoner, at sandiego.edu
(619) 260-4659
On Tuesday, April 3, 2012, at 5:30 p.m. USD’s Center for Education Policy and Law (CEPAL) and U-T San Diego will host the Mayoral Candidates’ Forum on Education. The forum will focus on the mayor’s role in public education in San Diego. U-T San Diego will stream live video coverage of the forum and San Diego’s Channel 10 will also broadcast highlights of the forum the following Saturday.
The candidates participating in the forum are Congressman Bob Filner, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher and City Council Member Carl DeMaio. Juan Williams, one of America’s leading political writers and thinkers, will moderate the forum. Williams most recently served as senior correspondent for NPR, and is currently a political analyst for Fox Television and a regular panelist on Fox News Sunday.
The Mayoral Candidates’ Forum on Education aims to inform the citizens of San Diego about each of the mayoral candidates’ perspectives on the mayor’s role in education.
The audience will be comprised of San Diego business owners and CEO’s, members of the military, nonprofit leaders, community leaders, education leaders, parents with children in San Diego public schools and faculty and students from the University of San Diego.
Candidates will respond to questions from the U-T San Diego readership, local education reporters, USD faculty and students, individuals viewing the forum live stream and those in the audience. To submit a question please email education@utsandiego.com.
U-T San Diego will live stream the debate live on their website www.utsandiego.com and on Saturday, April 7th, Channel 10 News will broadcast highlights from the forum between 6:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.
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Erica Holloway is a Rostra blogger and principal of Galvanized Strategies, a San Diego-based public relations firm. Contact her at erica@galvanizedstrategies.com or follow her @erica_holloway.
Comments 9
I agree Erica, what does the mayor have to do with education?
Author
Dear Ms Right:
Certainly the mayor should be paying attention to public education along with all important matters that affect the constituency.
But strictly speaking about education decisions made from within, I’m not sure. Certainly will be an interesting discussion.
Best, Erica
A mayor could ask the city council to change the city charter to allow district only elections. Maybe we could attact better candidates if they didn’t have to raise hundreds of thousands to run city wide.
Author
Dear gopmomofthree:
Good hearing from you, as always.
The school governance reform measure that didn’t qualify last year included a provision for district-only elections and people weren’t particularly jazzed about it.
But you’re quite right – the current election structure keeps potential candidates out of the running who can’t afford the races without special interest backing.
Perhaps that’s a good discussion for the future.
Best, Erica
Bob Filner’s plan for schools is to encourage Volunteers and Mentors.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/mar/29/a-test-on-san-diego-unified-for-citys-mayoral/?page=1#article
Here’s what the Candidates driving the Education Off ramp are telling us: “We don’t want to talk about the Hard Stuff like giant potholes in City streets. Ditto for libraries and recreation hours cut back. And especially we don’t want to handle labor unions and the greedy pensions they’ve extracted, and which are bleeding the city white. Those subjects are too Hard for us!
We’d rather run for School Board and do our best to look truly concerned, and hope voters don’t know what a Mayor really does. We’re counting on voters being ignorant.”
That strategy is not going to work. The people who will show up for a low turnout June primary do know what a Mayor does. They are smarter than the candidates taking this tack. It will fail and deserves to fail.
It is because Schools are polling high. Nothing more complicated than that.
Of course I think one part is that the more you talk about disfunctional schools the more the folks in D5 and most of D1 go “WTF” – we have good schools and keep your meddling hands out of em. Since they are high propensity voters, I am not sure this is the greatest strategy.
It would be extremely refreshing to hear a candidate for mayor say that she/he can’t be all things to all people; that the job of the mayor is to ensure the city focuses on the things it should do and focuses on doing those things well, without getting into other non-city responsibilities. Call me a Luddite.
Come on Barry. What planet are you living on? The Mayor has nothing to do with how the school districts are run? Next, you are going to tell us that President can’t control the price of gasoline. Is this Rostra or the Comedy Channel?