No Way to Treat an Admirable Guy

Admiral Brewer was picked to fail, I observed on these pages on October 22, 2006. The Board, so eager to throw him well, overboard, knew this day was coming. They went out of their way to select someone without educational experience so that it would take two years for him to learn. Meanwhile, they could continue to exercise their own authority.

Brewer caught on faster than anticipated and filled in the holes in his experience by selecting former Interim Superintendant Ramon Cortines to manage the educational part of our vast dysfunctional system. Brewer immediately went to work in the area of his competency--contracts and systems. He cleaned up a lot of bidding and contracting fraud and waste. He is still going after serial contracting abusers, which may be why they are trying to can him

The shameful lack of building and maintenance that former Superintendent Romer began to remedy, Brewer has continued with excellence. LAUSD had not opened a high school in over two decades! The dearth of classrooms, at all levels, made us pack kids into buses, jam freeways, waste the time and energy of students, pump pollutants into the air and throw away billions of dollars. None of this was for integration. That boat sailed long ago. This was lack of classrooms.

He is doing so well that, of course, the Board wants to waste money by buying him out and then picking another fall guy who can be blamed for not knowing what is going on and then fired when he or she finally figures it out.