Thursday’s Los Angeles Times reports on the firing of Redondo Beach school superintendent Carol Leighty, but reporter Wendy Thermos lacks the curiosity or column inches to explain why.

We posted earlier about how the Redondo teacher union pushed for Leighty’s termination through three union-backed school board members. But the LAT article mentioned this only in a he-said, she-said at the end of the piece. The reader might wonder why this is playing out in front of packed school board meetings and talks of recall petitions.

Missing from today’s Times article were facts that could explain why the community is angry:

• The previous school board gave Leighty high marks at her review prior to her contract renewal … only five months ago!

• The only change since then has been the election of two union-backed board members (of five total). The Board president, a holdover, was also elected with union support.

• Leighty has had several run-ins with the union.

The free local weekly paper, the Easy Reader, has more rounded coverage:

… a popular superintendent -– one hired by that very same school board majority elected two years ago –- was compelled to resign amid a cloud of mystery.

A crowd of nearly 200 attended the meeting and a clear majority voiced vociferous support for the embattled superintendent. Many criticized the decision as divisive and fiscally irresponsible.

… One of the most frequent accusations was that the board majority was acting on behalf of the teachers union rather than the constituents and students. Although Redondo Beach Teacher Union leaders have emphasized that they had nothing to do with Leighty’s departure, the powerful electoral force the union represents -– with an estimated 700 to 800 members living within Redondo, a voting block (sic) that has played a dominant role in every recent election — has fostered a lingering suspicion that their support comes with strings attached.

One wonders why the LAT even bothers with local (non-LA) coverage any more. Whether Thermos missed the salient point of the turmoil because she parachuted in, did not have enough space, or thinks teachers union critics should be discounted because the union only acts ‘for the children,’ readers in the South Bay gained little from the Times story.

The Times should have just posted a notice in the California section: “For coverage of this issue, see the Easy Reader or Daily Breeze.”

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In our earlier post we commented on the problem of too-strong teachers unions, so we won’t rehash those points here.

Technorati Tags: education, LA Times, Los Angeles Times, Redondo Beach

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 28th, 2005 at 9:55 am by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Los Angeles Times, (Un)education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.