Seattle Times staff reporter

ANAHEIM, Calif. —

For three years, José Banda quietly went about the business of leading the Anaheim City School District, working through steep budget cuts, remaking the transportation department, passing a $169 million school-construction bond.

He gave principals the chance to try new initiatives, put a special emphasis on helping Spanish-speaking students master English, and used a collaborative leadership style with his staff that encouraged everyone to chime in with ideas. On his watch, test scores rose modestly at some schools, more dramatically at others.

Suddenly, in his fourth year, search firms for much bigger school districts came knocking on his door. With three job opportunities, Banda found himself dusting off his résumé.

It was Seattle that grabbed him, and last week the Seattle School Board unanimously voted to make him the next schools chief.

Banda will come to work for a board that wants a greater role in the district’s operations and more transparency from its new superintendent. He will need to sell $1.2 billion in levies to a skeptical public, tighten controls over the district’s finances, build a new leadership team, close the achievement gap and get more students to go to college.

He’ll be under relentless scrutiny and pressure from parents, education-reform groups, the teachers union and the media. And he comes to a district where superintendents last a few years, financial scandals have made headlines, and the School Board is learning how to work together.

If he has any worries about the size of the job before him, Banda doesn’t voice them.

Sitting in his office in the modest, one-story Anaheim City School District office — about two miles from Disneyland’s front gates — he says he’s confident he can manage Seattle’s problems.

“It’s about leadership style, and I think my leadership style lends itself to any situation,” he said. “Every position I’ve taken has been a step up — and sometimes, it’s been a huge step up.”

Banda, a fit 55-year-old with graying black hair, comes across as unflappable. Calm reserve and a mild demeanor appear to be his defining characteristics. Born in Texas to migrant farmworkers, he moved with his family to Bakersfield, Calif., where he worked as a teen in the fields along with his six siblings. He spoke Spanish before he learned English.

Banda said it was his grade-school principal who challenged him to go to college. He was the first in his family to do so. His two children have followed in his footsteps: Adrian, 26, is teaching English in China; Naritza, 24, is about to graduate from California State University, Fullerton.

While Banda has steadily moved up the academic career ladder, he is not exactly a hard-charger, more of a competent and sensitive manager of people and resources. He will not be coming to Seattle packing a dozen education-reform ideas with plans to shake up the system. Rather, the self-effacing educator has pledged to spend a year listening to the Seattle community and getting to know its issues before he makes any significant moves.

“He doesn’t shoot from the hip; he really connects with people,” said Rudy Castruita, the former head of the San Diego schools who is now a search consultant and recommended Banda for Seattle. “He can calm the waters a little bit.”

Which is what the School Board said it wanted. Board members said they believe he can unite the community behind a collaborative approach. Some board members were concerned the other finalist late in the selection process, Sandra Husk, the schools chief in Oregon’s Salem-Keizer district, would come in with her own agenda.

Castruita said he had watched Banda at work in his previous job as assistant superintendent of the Oceanside Unified School District, and thought him a perfect fit for Seattle.

This spring, Banda was also considered to head the Montebello Unified and San Juan Unified districts in California, both significantly larger than the Anaheim district. “It was the year of people seeking me out,” he said.

Tenure in Anaheim

Anaheim seems light-years away from Seattle, and not just because the terrain is flat and the weather is mild and sunny. It’s a place where surnames are largely Latino and the teachers, principals and receptionists move seamlessly between English and Spanish.

As superintendent, Banda seems deeply comfortable and widely respected. Although he didn’t grow up in Anaheim, everyone from the PTA moms to the school receptionists say they are proud to see him take this next big step — and sorry to lose him.

“He’s a collaborative leader — very open and approachable,” said Anaheim Assistant Superintendent Jim Elsasser. “I am going to miss him tremendously. He has been a mentor to me.”

Diversity in Anaheim means something far different from what it is in Seattle. Eighty-six percent of the school population is Hispanic; 60 percent of students are English-language learners. White, African-American and Asian students make up a sliver of the enrollment.

Most Anaheim families work in the tourist trade, at hotels, restaurants and the theme parks —

I talked with the new ombudsman, Ronald McGlone, this afternoon. Here’s our edited and shortened conversation:

Lynne Varner: The Seattle Public Schools is always in the news but how does it feel to have the focus on you?

Ronald McGlone: It’s nice to get all of this attention from the media but I want to get back to work.

LV: Speaking of which, you started this week?

RM: I started March 1st but I helped the enrollment staff close out the open enrollment period. There is still school choice. Families have to apply to option schools and there are the remaining sibling issues out there. We processed close to 6,000 applications.

LV: So how did you get the job?

RM: For the last year, I’ve been working on this idea while studying with the Superintendent’s Initiative for Leadership Development, a program started by former Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson to improve the leadership skills of principals and other middle managers.

In this district, we lack that one point-person, that go-to person who can cut throught the red tape, cut to the chase and steer families in the right direction. I talked to Deputy Superintendent Noel Treat about this and he asked me to do more research and put together a plan of action. I have to give credits to Noel and (Interim Superintendent) Susan Enfield) for having the vision to agree to my plan.

LV: What’s the 10-second elevator speech that best describes your job?

RM: I want to close that gap that exists for a lot of underserved families that don’t have the means to navigate the district. Policies should be a bridge, not a barrier.

LV: How are you going to navigate the silos and the impression that you’re trying to second-guess your colleagues?

RM: I’m going to have to rely on the experts. There is a lot that they know and they are good at what they do. But I bring a human side to the bureaucracy. I can help neutralize hostility. (Administrators) would rather have me (to deal with) than an irate customer.

LV: You can’t be a white knight every day. How will you calibrate the public’s expectations about what you can and cannot do for them?

RM: Sometimes I will have to tell people no. It will be a customer-friendly no but still be no. But it doesn’t mean that you don’t try for them, or that you don’t get back to families. I’m going to try and be honest and forthright. I think people get it; parents just don’t want to be ignored.

We want parents to be involved in the schools. We have to help them want to be involved. he shortest distance between two people is courtesy. That cuts both ways.
The customer is not always right but they are always customers.

LV: Amen

State Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell, and Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, D-Seattle, have used their peremptory power to squish two measures that would have nudged Washington toward the national mainstream.

One bill would hold educators genuinely accountable for student performance; the other (now dead) would have authorized a limited number of charter public schools.

Both strategies are strongly encouraged by the Obama administration and have been embraced by states trying to shake public schools out of mediocrity. Both are opposed in this state by teacher unions and other stalwarts of the status quo.

As usual, the Legislature’s powers-that-be crouch like defensive NFL linemen, ready to tackle anything that might challenge the failing trade-union industrial model of public education.

This year, though, McAuliffe had to deal with a bipartisan rebellion that effectively shut down her committee last week. A majority of the Senate Education Committee wanted to at least hold a vote on the charter school bill; when she refused, they refused to act on any other education legislation.

Credit is due the Republicans and Democrats who forced this crisis. And some credit is due the Senate leaders who revived the accountability bill – though not the charter bill – by shifting it to the Ways and Means Committee.

Revived with it was a watered-down “teacher evaluation” bill with few teeth; it is favored by K-12 establishment types who want to claim credit for a weak alternative that can be labeled as reform.

The real thing is Senate Bill 5896, which would make performance an overriding factor in hiring, firing, layoffs and transfers. Seniority has traditionally dictated these employment decisions, a policy that treats highly educated teachers much like factory workers.

SB 5896 is supported by people who want much more from our schools, including the League of Education Voters, Stand for Children and companies weary of barely literate job applicants.

Let’s be clear: The teaching profession is packed with effective educators who give their all to their students and deserve substantially more compensation. But they share the pay scales and job protections of ineffective teachers who belong in another honorable line of work.

Teaching in the public schools is as important as surgery – arguably more important. Real education reform will reward teachers like surgeons, on the basis of ability and results, not on how long they’ve been able to hang on to their jobs in a system that makes it almost impossible to fire them.

Someday, perhaps even Washington’s Legislature will figure this out.

However, the details are highly important, because “basic” does not specify educators’ pay and class sizes, which can swing a budget pretty dramatically. Voters – via ballot initiatives – have shown interest in increased spending on those items, only to have the Legislature ignore them due to revenue constraints.

Then, of course, there is the battle over what programs would be slashed to make K-12 funding whole. Would this mean another round of devastating cuts for higher education? The state is already approaching long-term damage on that front because it isn’t constitutionally protected.

It’s this dichotomy between financing K-12 schooling versus any other educational spending that is a legitimate cause of concern.

There was a time when educators on all levels talked of constructing a K-16 system to reflect the growing importance of a college education to students, employers and the state’s economic health. One of the benefits would be greater coordination between high school and college standards to curb extra spending on remedial course work.

But tough budgetary circumstances and the legal challenges to the state’s financing of K-12 education have reintroduced the wedge between K-12 and college funding, with the latter coming out a significant loser.

Washington State University President Elson Floyd noted in a recent Seattle Times op-ed that the state covered, on average, 84 percent of a student’s college costs in 1987. It would drop to 35 percent under Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed budget. That dramatic 25-year turnaround is the chief reason tuition has skyrocketed.

As a result, access to a college education narrows, and student debt mounts. It’s a double whammy that diminishes young people’s prospects for enjoying the same standard of living as their parents.

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said his administration might start punishing universities that continue to enact large tuition hikes, but this is misguided. State legislatures control college costs.

Meanwhile, Washington state’s universities are reporting worrisome “brain drains,” as some of their most talented faculty members leave or consider leaving because of the state’s lack of support.

This is a serious matter and one we fear would get swept aside with an “Education First” approach that doesn’t include colleges and universities. It looks as if this bill has no chance in this session, but the discussion ought to continue.

We recommend bringing higher education to the table next time.

Seattle Times education reporter