Friday, May 09, 2008

MiraCosta demonstrates how California's education system thwarts voters and their elected officials

This is how you end up with a Victoria Richart in charge of your school.

MiraCosta College's bizarre search for a president demonstrates how schools are run--by powerful committees behind the scenes, not by board members.

Most board members simply rubberstamp the decisions made for them by lawyers and committees.

Good for Judy Stratton and Greg Post for objecting to a system where many excellent candidates--very likely including the best candidates--are eliminated for political reasons.

Who exactly was on the MiraCosta committe that eliminated 36 candidates and expected the board to choose between only two candidates? Was there a lawyer on the committee, by any chance? Daniel Shinoff, maybe?


OCEANSIDE: MiraCosta College trustees want details on search
By PAUL SISSON
May 6, 2008

...Though the board did not make any firm decisions Tuesday, the trustees expressed concern that they did not receive enough information on the pool of candidates interviewed by MiraCosta's presidential search committee earlier this year.

Trustee Judy Strattan noted that each participant in the college's previous 21-member search committee signed a confidentiality agreement prior to beginning its work, which produced only two candidates from a pool of 38 applicants. Strattan said committee members refused to divulge anything about the candidate pool before selecting the two candidates, and added that she found so little information unacceptable.

"This is definitely a board decision," Stratton said.

Trustees Greg Post and Jacqueline Simon agreed.

Simon said the board should not be in the dark about how many candidates applied, what types of general qualifications they possess, and perhaps a bit about the pool's ethnic diversity and ratio of male and female applicants.

"It seems to me there are still things you can tell us without breaking confidentiality," Simon said.

Post said the board received similar information during its search for Richart.

"We had all that information," Post said. "I too was taken somewhat aback when we couldn't even have how many applicants there were..."

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/05/07/news/coastal/oceanside/93102afec90999e6882574420018833d.txt

No comments: