A conversation with … CSBA President Dr. Kerry Clegg 

Kerry Clegg, a board member in the Sulphur Springs Union Elementary School District in Los Angeles County, will be sworn in as President of the California School Boards Association at the organization’s December 2004 Delegate Assembly in San Francisco. Clegg has served on the board of trustees for the Sulphur Springs school district since 1989, with three terms as president. He has also served as president of the Santa Clarita Valley School Trustees Association. He represented Region 22 as a member of CSBA’s Delegate Assembly, and was on its Board of Directors from 1998-02. Clegg has a doctorate in biology from the University of California, Los Angeles and works as a biological research manager for Sepulveda Research Corporation, and as the CEO of a federal credit union. He and his wife, Rosanna, have five children. CSBA Assistant Executive Director, Communications Mina Fasulo recently caught up with Clegg to discuss his thoughts about the educational issues of the day and his vision for public education in California.

Serving as a board member is tough enough, given all the other professional and personal obligations that we all juggle, but making the commitment necessary to reach the presidency of CSBA is really quite a feat. What first inspired you to start down that road?

Well, as you know, I’ve been participating in CSBA activities for about 15 years, since very soon after I became a board member in my own district, and I’ve always been extremely interested in the educational process in California. I’m a product of the California education system and I feel that I received a very good education. But having been through that and then watching my kids start the process, I felt that the quality of the education system in California had diminished. So I became very interested in participating and being part of the policy-making process. As I got more involved in that as a board member and a member of CSBA, I saw that more and more of the policy issues that affect California education occur at the state level. When I began to see that my involvement with CSBA really brought me closer to the forefront of the statewide policy-making process that really inspired me to get even more involved with CSBA’s efforts.

How has watching your own kids influenced your ideas about what California students really need in order to achieve?

You know, it’s interesting because it’s shown me how diverse my own family is in terms of their abilities to grasp particular ideas presented in particular ways. I think watching my kids made me a better board member. I could see that some of the programs we have in place in my district work well with some kids, and some work well with others. My family’s really an example of the old one-size-does-not-fit-all adage. That’s really instilled in me a very, very strong feeling that the educational system has to be adaptive and it has to look for ways to help kids succeed rather than just promoting them whether they’re ready or not. I think what happens many times is that teachers and administrators feel they have to get through a certain number of lessons whether or not the kids actually know the material. We need to provide programs that give kids the help they need to succeed and give teachers and administrators the tools to use benchmark tests in a diagnostic way that helps those students.

I know you support the goals behind behind the No Child Left Behind Act, but I also know that you have serious reservations about whether we can achieve its goals as it’s currently written. In your opinion, what really needs to change to make this legislation work?

As a scientist, I’ve dealt with statistics all my life. I got my doctorate in biology from UCLA and I taught there for 25 years. So I can confidently tell you that there is absolutely no social group, no educational process, no human system at all that is ever going to achieve 100 percent of any particular goal unless the goal is set so low that it’s all inclusive. And so right off the bat, the law required we achieve the unachievable. We need to be holding schools accountable for the progress of students and we need to demonstrate that kids are being reached by their movement from the lower deciles into the upper deciles. But 100 percent proficiency of any standard is just statistically impossible. So once we acknowledge that, what’s the purpose of having that as a goal? To demonstrate that education is failing so that we can provide alternatives like vouchers or school choice? The rhetoric is that the goal is to demonstrate that all kids are able to learn, and I think that’s a great goal, but because the measure of success is so unrealistic and because the whole law is based on those measures, we actually end up going down the wrong road on the way to the right goal. If that particular aspect of the law were changed to a growth model like California’s, most of the other issues we have with it would fade away.

School facilities is another complex and frustrating component of public education. Even so, you chose to chair CSBA’s School Facilities Task Force. In fact, you did so well that you were appointed to the advisory board of the Division of State Architects. What facilities wisdom can you pass on to the average board member that might help him or her to keep it all in perspective?

The School Facilities Task Force was very challenging because at the time we were really at a crossroads in this state as to how we were going to fund facilities, and a schism of sorts had developed among the different districts and educational groups over the implementation of the priority-point system. Basically, that system allowed the larger urban school districts to jump to the head of the list. But as a task force, we were successful in getting the Legislature and the public to understand that this priority-point system was detrimental and that the school districts across the state needed facilities very badly and that every district had to be treated as such — not just the big urban districts that were always in the news. We got the bond threshold vote lowered and that provided an opportunity for all school districts to then get the facilities they needed and the backlog of unfunded projects completed. And the monies have really been there, and it’s really been equitably distributed as districts get their applications in. But as we all know, the last statewide bond we passed was not enough to get schools the facilities they really need to improve achievement. We never thought it was. It was the largest bond in the history of the state and we knew we’d have a tough enough time passing that one. So I expect there will be another bond campaign during my presidency. I’m a strong advocate of school construction because the need is so great and because it also provides a strong basis for recovery of the state economy, which in turn helps public education even more. It’s all tied together and that element is very important for us to realize as board members.

You were also chair of CSBA’s Legislative Committee, which helps to determine the organization’s legislative priorities for the year. What were some of the more eye-opening experiences you took away from your work on that committee?

I think the Legislative Committee is an extremely important committee. It utilizes our Policy Platform and input from the delegates to drive the positions that CSBA takes on various legislative issues. One of the things I learned in two years on that committee was how difficult it is to walk across the street to the Capitol and get our points across to the Legislature. So many of the Assembly members are there for a very short period of time, so it seems like every two years, CSBA has to go in and educate a new batch of legislators about California’s education system. Everybody who gets elected to the state Legislature has an education agenda, but virtually none of them has any experience or knowledge about how the educational system in the state actually works. That historical perspective of long-term legislators is just not there anymore and that really complicates our advocacy efforts.

What are a few of the issues you really intend to focus on during your tenure as President of CSBA?

Since Gov. Schwarzenegger has been elected, the priorities seem to change a little more because we’re just not sure about what to expect. Up until the California Performance Review came out, I thought that this year would mostly be about facilities issues and budget issues. But the CPR is a process where non-educators have taken positions about how to improve the educational system and that requires us to get out there and educate people about what the educational system is in this state and what it is not. So, I can see that if the CPR gets any steam behind it in the next year, then I’m going to be very involved in explaining those issues and telling the truth about what is going on. Another issue is that 2005 and 2006 are going to be the years in which we may begin to see some regulatory changes in NCLB and we may begin to get the U.S. Department of Education on board in terms of developing and adopting a growth model for achievement. And then, I’m also very excited that I’ll be serving as the chair of CSBA’s new Science Task Force, which is sort of appropriate, I guess, for a scientist. It’s a joint task force with the California Science Teachers Association in which we’re going to be looking at science education in California and trying to find ways to improve it, move it forward. I think it will also reenergize science education so that we can begin to produce another generation of students who want to go into science, math and engineering professions. In turn, I hope we can remind people that without scientists and researchers and good science education, this technologically advanced society will cease to progress. And California needs to be at the forefront of the technological revolution. We’re 10 to 12 percent of the total national population — not to mention the gross national product. A lot of that came from Silicon Valley and from engineering, aerospace and biomedical research in this state. These are all science fields and they need to be replenished and reenergized, so I’m obviously very excited to take that project on as well.