Steinhauser's Wife Speaks Out

It never ceases to amaze me how contentious local school board elections can be. Then again, where resort commuinty are concerned, I've learned to be less surprised than I otherwise would be. This runoff election, destined for 06 June, 2006, is a particularly weird case, since the current superintendent of LBUSD, Chris Steinhauser, has marshalled enough cooperating grey cells to realize that his next contract renewal depends upon Jim Choura's relection.

Not only is Chris deeply involved in enhancing his chances for a contract renewal, he has 'volunteered' all the LBUSD principals to help him out; and, it appears, his family members have rolled out of the rack to help out like...well...like family members.

From: http://www.presstelegram.com/letters/ci_3875466

School board
"All of a sudden, after many years of working together and achieving tremendous gains in academics for our students, we are told by the Teachers Association of Long Beach (TALB) that the school district is a terrible, dogmatic and abusive place to work. Wow, where have I been? Somehow the director of TALB and even the TALB-supported candidates running for school board who have had little to do with the school district in the last 10 years seem to know our district better than those of us who have worked and lived in our district. We must be miserable because they have said so.

Thankfully, we live in the United States of America, and can have a voice in our local papers. The union doesn't want to hear opposing views. They continually try to be hard-hitting, even toward their own members. A TALB mailer was sent to all of its members from the Newcomb teachers stating that members should "lay guilt trips on people who don't get actively involved" for candidate David Barton. Well, I am involved, both monetarily and actively, in support of Jim Choura. He is from my small town.

Alida Steinhauser — Teacher, Signal Hill Elementary
Long Beach"

So, who is Alida Steinhauser? (As if we don't already know.)

Take a brief look at http://www.lbusd.k12.ca.us/district/superintendent/bio.asp where you will discover the answer in the final paragraph:

"Steinhauser’s wife, Alida, is a 20-year veteran educator who teaches fifth grade literacy at Signal Hill Elementary School. Their son, Edward, graduated from Long Beach’s Wilson Classical High School in June of 2005. Their daughter, Patricia, attends Wilson. With this background, no one is more committed to the success of all students here in California’s third largest school district than Chris Steinhauser."

OK. I've talked with Steinhauser himself. He's no paragon of logic and full-disclosure honesty. Maybe we should dissect his wife's words to see how she measures up to the ethics standard?

"All of a sudden, after many years of working together and achieving tremendous gains in academics for our students, we are told by the Teachers Association of Long Beach (TALB) that the school district is a terrible, dogmatic and abusive place to work."

Yes. It has been a sudden transition on the part of TALB; however, over the past 12 years, LBUSD teachers have been murmuring about the draconian working conditions to which they have been subjected, as well as the impossibility of getting TALB to address and rectify the undesirable conditions under which they have suffered.

Many people have been aware for many years that LBUSD is a terrible, dogmatic and abusive place to work. It didn't suddenly become that way, as your idiomatic phrasing would tend to suggest. It's been that way for a very long time. Perhaps I have the advantage of speaking to teachers - NOT being you, or your husband. People are keenly aware that speaking such truths to LBUSD administrative types - or those who are closely linked to same - amounts to professional suicide.

The essential problem, for you, is that the previous tacit agreements between TALB and LBUSD admin are now a thing of the past. We understand that this can be upsetting in that this is a matter of multiple bruises upon one's ego, but this is the way it must be.

Carl Cohn was far better at concealing the inequities that existed in LBUSD, as well as cajoling folks into believeing that he was doing the very best job that could be done. Carl rarely allowed a spark to develop into a bonfire.

You need to understand that your hubby has never been possessed of such 'people skills'; which would otherwise equate to being the consumate, intelligent, scummy politciain. Unfortunately Chris suffers from additional defecits which, in aggregate reduces him to nothing more than your garden-variety, low-to-average intelligence, scummy, politician-wannabe. He regularly allows non-issues to blossom into nuclear detonations, and allows the fallout to descend upon only himself.

Honey, he simply doesn't possess the saavy to do the 'political pick-n-roll'. He's relying upon an overly-simplistic understanding of his job title and authority to run interference for him. I have heard him likened to Hitler in many circles, and I would have to struggle with my conscience to motivate myself into making the merest of attempts at dispelling this analogy.

"Wow, where have I been?"

It may interest you to know that there exist manifold theories that could competently answer that hypothetical query but, since we all know that this nothing more than a rhetorical construct, let's just say that you've been tucked-away in a cushy little alcove at Signal Hill Elementary. You've merely been standing by your man - to preserve that extra $196,000.00 per annum in family luxury budget that you feel more than entitled to. It really doesn't matter to you that there are thousands of students, to the West of your school site, that regularly do without to provide the dollars for your little niceties that our student are regularly refused.

What the Hell, babycakes. You've got yours, and those little brown kids (our children) are nothing more than animals who don't need the same educational opportunities that your lilly-white kids do.

The difference between you and ME, honey, is that we will teach our children that, success in life does not equate to kissing the most powerful posterior in ready proximity to get what you want. We teach our children to expose and overturn scum like Chris.

"Somehow the director of TALB and even the TALB-supported candidates running for school board who have had little to do with the school district in the last 10 years seem to know our district better than those of us who have worked and lived in our district."

I find it interesting that the folks from Redondo Beach have nothing but thanks for Scott MCcVarish - along with the occasional mention that there are former Redondo Beach School Board Members who will be pleading 'guilty' to various criminal charges (very soon ,now).

I also find in curious that people who have been directly and deeply involved with this district for periods of time approaching 25 years, rate it as 'abysmal' when discussing the press releases from LBUSD.

Now, with all sympathy, it's difficult to see one's future potentially evaporating in a puff of smoke but, that is the way it must be.

Was it not Doris Day who intoned: 'Que Sera Sera'?

Deal with it. The children are more important than the future of any individual LBUSD administrator.

"We must be miserable because they have said so."

Don't fool yourself. There is no 'WE' to it.

You aren't miserable because you happen to be in the West-most area of the 'entitled-zone'. Those to the West of your little enclave have been quite miserable because it is OUR CHILDREN who have been denied a Free, Adequate, Public Education. It is OUR CHILDREN who have been denied manipulatives, textbooks and computers; to supply YOUR CHILDREN with Marine Biology courses (and more) in their K-8's. (Have you forgotten that Robinson Academy was listed--by name--in the Williams Complaint?)

Dearie...we don't give. You snow-job us, knock us down, and take, take, take. Like the lunch money theiving bully on the playground, you steal the funding for what little educational opportunities our children have, and take it for your own children. Your children who, by virtue of your own fiscal resources and social affiliations, need it least.

Truthfully, and without equivocation, name a fully-functioning GATE program in our part of the district. One to which we don't have to pay to transport our children to. One which is close to our homes, to allow us to respond quickly to any conceivable emergency. One which doesn't brain-drain our gifted children off the West-Side campuses--boosting the East-Side campus APIs--further feeding your shallow justification for disparity in per-student funding.

Moreover, if you are somehow 'miserable', it may just be that the horizon holds the specter of the carefully-crafted LBUSD house of cards being razed by TALB affiliated 'undesirables'. You know...the 'dirty' kind of folk that you are very careful not to associate too closely with because they don't hold your business-first political ideals and associations.

Nobody who depends upon a district paycheck will tell you that there is misery is to be had in LBUSD.

Perhaps, on the one hand, because it isn't necessarily THEIR misery. Everything's fine on the East-Side. It's all good in Jim's district, because the money is there to give the children textbooks to take home with them. Ask an East-Side parent or teacher about misery, and you'll hear very little.

On the other hand, it may be because you're the superintendent's wife. Nobody who works for LBUSD is stupid enough to put their head on the chopping block simply to voice an opinion that they know nobody at Hughs Way will ever bother taking more seriously than to retaliate against the holder of said opinion. I suppose that LBUSD is to be credited with hiring folk who are at least smart enough to know that they have a mortgage to pay.

Don't bother asking about misery on the West-Side. Most folk, over here, have had it drilled into their souls that the very question is, at best, disingenuous; and, at worst, nothing more than a set-up for retaliation. In either case, you aren't interested in anything more than "Chris hung the moon!"

Our misery is of no interest to you, and we know that. We are, in your eyes, qualitatively less than human...no six-figure pay check, not Rotary, not Country Club...devoid of the capacity for hopes, dreams, consideration for our children, rational thought and educational privation. Therefore, there is no misery to be had in LBUSD--certainly none at Chris' instigation. Perish the thought!

"Thankfully, we live in the United States of America, and can have a voice in our local papers."

That depends upon who you are and what you have to say.

I have written many letters to the Press Telegram and had my words twisted out of context - in an effort to create the impression that I was saying the opposite of what I really attempted to say; or had my words suppressed entirely.

The Press Telegram regularly suppresses points of view that they feel are contrary to the City Hall clique agenda; unless, in so doing, they would leave themselves open to greater criticism in the instant case. So you do see the occasional piece out there that is critical of LBUSD; however, I'd be willing to wager that the volume of LBUSD-critical missives that do make it through to see ink, is certainly not reflective of the true opinions of the Long Beach citizenry.

I doubt that anyone who speaks, in substantial accordance with the LBUSD and Long Beach City Hall party line is as regularly and thoroughly squelched by Rich Arbold's donzels as our contingent is and has been for years.

There is a fiscal stake in Choura being reelected, and you know exactly who holds that stake--Chris and You. It is highly likely that, if Choura isn't re-seated this election, that Chris will lose his contract and go itinerant to find a job. (I doubt that there's much market for a term-and-a-half superintendent with as poor a CV as Chris can muster-up.)

Bummer! I know it stinks, but WE will be all the better-off for it, as will the teachers in LBUSD.

"The union doesn't want to hear opposing views."

Neither does LBUSD, nor the Press Telegram. Both are in the position to silence the opposition much more so than TALB would ever imagine doing.

It is, in Chris' estimation, far better to pretend that LBUSD is performing as it should. It is, in Rich's estimation, far better to preserve the strings of control of LBUSD, originating from Long Beach City Hall.

I certainly have never heard anyone from the union claim - in the face of indisputable fact - that a person is unqualified to grasp truth; as I have often heard from LBUSD admin-types. The near-constant fall-back upon false appeals to authority, as a tool of debate on the part of district-types, has never ceased to amaze me. Its manner of implementation makes it blatantly obvious, to my eye, that the district has little concern for the educational outcomes of all the children within its boundaries--beyond that which is federally- or state-mandated, that is.

In my estimation, the LBUSD administrators are either uneducated or liars. I leave it to you to chose which.

"They continually try to be hard-hitting, even toward their own members."

Hard-hitting is dragging your principals into a meeting, calling for campaign 'volunteers' and knowing that each and every principal understands the political climate in which they are employed. If they refuse to 'volunteer' they have no hope in hell of advancement in Chris' Reich.

Hard-hitting is creating an atmosphere of oppression within the workplace (school sites, if you will), wherein it is implicitly understood that the merest vocalization of dissent is sufficient cause for various forms of retribution from the site administrator.

Hard-hitting is leaving hundreds of excellent teachers in your wake, all maintaining that, "The district makes it nearly impossible to do what is right for the children!"

Then again, hard-hitting may just be TALB getting a 10% raise for their teachers.

"A TALB mailer was sent to all of its members from the Newcomb teachers stating that members should "lay guilt trips on people who don't get actively involved" for candidate David Barton."

An LBUSD mailer was sent to all parents, impropitiously campaigning for Choura's reelection, further damning TALB. LBUSD's offense is the greater crime in that district funds paid for the mailer.

LBUSD further exacerbated their guilt by using principals to campaign for Choura, using telephone numbers to which the principals were not entitled to avail themselves for that purpose.

I can well imagine that TALB did advance the statement that active members should, "lay guilt trips on people who don't get actively involved." I also note that you excluded from the quote-bracketing, "for candidate David Barton."

I have not seen the mailer to which you are referring but, given the traditional use of the English language, by LBUSD patriots, I can well-imagine that the quote you used is taken quite out of context.

A union does not function well if its members are not actively involved, dear. That's the way it works. Active union members should attempt to solicit interest and active participation from those union members who may have concluded that "nothing will get better" for them. It's a constant battle, this process of generating active interest and participation.

A good analogy is the civic duty of voting. One should feel ashamed for not voting. One should feel doubly-ashamed for not voting and subsequently complaining about the state of affairs in one's community. Thus, one should feel ashamed for not actively participating in the process of collective bargaining. Union participation is, effectively, the exercise of one's enfranchisement.

"Well, I am involved, both monetarily and actively, in support of Jim Choura."

Why did you not lead your comments off with the open declaration that you're Chris' wife?

IMHO: You're monetarily involved because it represents a good ROI.

Further IMHO: You are attempting to misuse your position as a teacher to create the impression in the voting public that you are fair and impartial--that all teachers would voice support for Jim, were they asked for their opinion.

Even Further IMHO: Rotary Buddies have to stick together. This is presumably a loyalty which would be respected by Rotary wives as well.

Coming from the perspective of a Mason: Rotary, Elks, Masons, etc., all actively promote a secretive cronyism which excludes from opportunity those who are more qualified and more willing to do their jobs to the point of excellence.

"He is from my small town."

You don't live in a small town, sweety. You live in a friggin' resort community. One in which, for many years, has existed a condition of 'haves', 'have-nots' and rampant cronyism. A condition which Chris Steinhauser has only exacerbated through his pesudo-Third Reich political gaming.

Resort communities are, frequently, corrupt in matters fiscal and political. The essential problem lies in the fact that the residents of such resort communities are generally unaware that they live under the yoke of such corruption simply because the local media are complicitous in the furtherance of said corruption.

Gee! I wonder if the Press Telegram fits the foregoing description?

One can easliy be convinced that this is the case from the volume of view points contrary to your own that the Press Telegram has staunchly refused to print.

You leave me to wonder if your use of the phrase, "He is from my small town." isn't a euphemism for, "We are members of the same country club." I have seen stranger things in Long Beach.

"Alida Steinhauser — Teacher, Signal Hill Elementary"

Should all things remain as they are, today, transfer to Burnett Elementary and honestly say what you've said in 5 years time.

I submit to you that you will not be able to do so.