All together, children: "a teacher is someone who teaches children in a classroom."
I was going to entitle this article “The Only Vote That Could Ever Please Me is a Vote for the Teacher Man,” but then I decided not to be too cute about it. The vote for Eleazar Elizondo today for District 1 of the Orange County Board of Education is one that really matters. It’s a vote against extremism, against cronyism, and against crass opportunism.
(That is to say: it’s a vote against, respectively, Robert Hammond, Ken Nguyen, and Art Pedroza.)
If you haven’t read my earlier pieces on this race, this is probably your last chance to do so before you vote. Here are links to:
OCBOE Dist 1 candidate Elizondo: “teacher” actually has a meaning
Eleazar Elizondo Demonstrates His Chops Analyzing OCBOE Issue
Eleazar Elizondo Opponent Demonstrates HIS Analytic Chops, Too!
Eleazar Elizondo Thinks Qualifications Matter for OC Board of Ed
Now on to the story of the day.
Eleazar Elizondo, of all the candidates in this years election (me included), has the best reason I’ve heard for wanting to run for office.
He’s not trying to promote his party or an issue agenda; he’s not being self-serving; he’s not trying to build up support for a future race; he’s not trying to increase his speaking fees. He had not planned on running until Long Pham bolted (or was bolted from) the race shortly before the end of filing and others began to filter in. As noted in He thinks he’d be good at the job, but he wasn’t really slavering for the job.
He’s running for one reason: he doesn’t think that the other guys should win. So let’s talk about the other guys first.
Ken Nguyen
To be fair, I don’t recall Elizondo saying much about Ken Nguyen. Then again, Ken Nguyen doesn’t say much about Ken Nguyen either. He does have a website, where he says this:
I’ve spent most of my career managing adult vocational schools. Despite limited funding, we were able to maximize our services and help thousands of immigrants learn English and acquire the skills they need to succeed in America. By improving efficiency, we can help public schools succeed despite serious budget cuts imposed by Sacramento.
That’s about it for the issues. (Elizondo’s verdict in comparing his own experience as an actual classroom teacher to the others: “[Nguyen] states he has some adult vocational experience.”) The page that seems to matter for Ken Nguyen’s candidacy is the endosements page. He lists:
Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas [sic], California State Senator Lou Correa, California State Assemblyman Jose Solorio, Garden grove [sic] Mayor Pro Tem Steve Jones, Garden Grove Council Member Bruce Broadwater, Garden Grove Council Member Dina Nguyen, Garden Grove Council Member Kris Beard, Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido, Santa Ana Council Member Vincent Sarmiento, Santa Ana Council Member Michele Martinez, Santa Ana Council Member Carlos Bustamante, Santa Ana Council Member Sal Tinajero, Santa Ana Council Member David Benavides, Fountain Valley Council Member Michael Vo, Westminster Mayor Margie Rice, Westminster Council Member Frank Fry, Westminster Council Member Tri Ta, Westminster School Board Member Andrew Nguyen, Santa Ana School Board President Rob Richardson, Westminster School Board Member Sergio Contreras, Garden grove School Board Member Lan Nguyen, and Santa Ana School Board Member Roman Reyna.
If this establishment group is your cup of tea, and if qualifications are secondary to endorsements in your book, then Ken Nguyen may be your guy. It’s just sort of “more power to the powerful” as opposed to “more quality from the qualified,” but worse things could happen to the Board of Education. For example:
Robert Hammond
Hammond is the religious political extremist, home schooler, and self-appointed trainer of other home schoolers who was ejected from the 69th Assembly District race by the county GOP because of their abiding love for Tom Daly. Hammond needed somewhere to land, so somehow Long Pham ending up having to go all in on his apparently doomed AD-72 bid. County officials are trying to make it up to the Vietnamese community by supporting Nguyen. GOP Party officials are cuddling up to the Tea Party by fawning over Hammond. If you like the idea of Board of Ed policy used to bash gays and promote religion, here’s your guy.
Elizondo’s verdict: “[Hammond] is a home school parent and he thinks this qualifies him to call himself a ‘teacher’.” Lots of politicians get exercised about ballot designations, but Elizondo seems to have more passion — and justification — than most. He is an actual teacher by profession who can’t use the ballot designation “teacher” because he hasn’t been teaching (instead doing political consulting work) for the past year. Hammond goes on an anti-science jihad, pulls his kids out of school — and he gets to call himself a teacher when running for the public board of education.
Strange system. And it’s about to get even stranger:
Art Pedroza
While the prospect of Hammond’s winning was one reason for Elizondo to get into the race, the prospect of former gay-bashing Republican, former gay-friendly Democrat, former or current (I no longer know) Libertarian anti-union activist and union member Art Pedroza seems to have made up his mind for good. Pedroza, whose blogs are literally six of the top seven Google hits I found when searching for information on Ken Nguyen, is not one to shy away from self-promotion. (As I’ve noted, I intend not to blog about the substance of my own race against Bob Huff here at all, though I’m not going to pretend that it isn’t happening. Art, though, wants to be the go-to source for information about the opponent who stole away Sal Tinajero’s heart.)
The substance of Pedroza is not something that I think I need to discuss here. Let’s just say that I think I’m doing him a favor by trying to keep him out of office, because if he bends reality and abuses power like he does on a blog I shudder to think what he’d do with real power, but I’m afraid he’d really hurt himself.
Pedroza also has a “teacher” ballot designation, because he is part of a team that occasionally teaches adult safety classes for painters at Cerritos College. (If I were Pedroza, I would simply say “Outside of Orange County” and leave you to imagine that it was Bakersfield.) Elizondo’s verdict: “[Pedroza] is a part time-hourly instructor in an adult vocation program and yet he calls himself a ‘teacher.'”
Elizondo seems really fixed on the idea that it’s a good idea to have at least one experienced elementary school teacher on the Orange County Board of Education. (If I were Art Pedroza, I’d say that Elizondo was “obsessed,” “jealous of his credentials,” or God knows what. I can’t really bear to think of it anymore.)
If you agree with Elizondo that years of teaching in elementary school, as well as being a pitching coach in junior high and an instructor for an academic discipline, History of California and Nevada Government, in community college — well, then he’s there to earn your vote. If not, then at least Ken Nguyen isn’t pretending to be what you think about when someone calls themselves a teacher, so I guess that what he doesn’t do wrong is a reason to give him a lukewarm secondary endorsement. He doesn’t seem to be one of the people who drove Elizondo to enter the race; that is itself a sort of qualification.
A qualification it is — but not as good a one as Elizondo’s.
I might as well put this in this post, since Art Pedroza preceded FFFF in this action, but: FFFF has put my comments back on moderation status. It may have had something to do with this exchange:
Or perhaps this one:
Or it could be this one:
Yeah, it’s probably that one. Some people can dish it out, but can’t take it — even anonymously.
Anyone inclined to defend my honor — if you can get past the moderation — can comment here: http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2012/do-the-right-thing/. As it may not be printed, feel welcome to cross-post your comment here too so that everyone can enjoy it!
On a similar note, the Nelson household is in mourning right now for our cat Loki, who died the other night at 13 and was always a big fighter. With no tough cats in suburban HB to tangle with, he took to slaughtering baby possums most nights. Animal control found him lying across the street last week, literally torn in two pieces. They say it was a coyote, but looking at the damage, we are pretty sure it had to have been a Chupacabras.
RIP Loki!
I’m sorry to hear about Loki. I’m also sorry to learn that HB has chupacabras. Talk to Joe Shaw about that.
Vern,
Sorry about your cat Loki.
I am a dog lover, but since I love animals in generals, I learned to “tolerate” cats because they are just strange, and my 23 yr old daughter has always loved cats, and has always had them.
paco
It’s cool, he was old and sickly … I only mentioned it because I was semi-humorously comparing Loki to Greg, and the baby possums to some of the FFFF commenters.
My brother Crab (whom you met) and my two oldest sons Julian and Dorian, have been competing with each other writing eulogies to the cat. I’m still waiting for one of them to outdo my effort from Tuesday:
“…and how far had he fallen from his Glory Days of the Turn of the Century, when he held Haight Ashbury’s Hell Angels in the grip of terror. A gaunt but fearless relic of his former self, he had spent the past few years as nothing but a glorified Bouncer, guarding the entrance to my parents’ suburban HB home with nothing but his skeletal frame and a glare that said “None shall pass.” Guest, family member, or burglar, each would pause in a brief spasm of trepidation, before collecting themselves and moving on, brushing right past the emaciated and humiliated feline.
“Consoling himself most nights with the slaughter of baby possums, Loki made no friends among the local wildlife. One can imagine the plotting that went on behind his back, in every large bush. Fully aware of the “chatter” on the street, he snorted with disdain at the dangers posed by raccoons, possums, and even coyotes, while relentlessly, single-mindedly preparing for his final showdown – the confrontation which he felt he was born for, all other battles not worth his effort – the Memorial Day Weekend Assault against that most brutal and vicious of Southern California wildlife, the Surf City CHUPACABRAS.
“And we all know how that turned out. And perhaps it was “written,” as the Muslims say. But still, we let Loki down. We should have been there with him, we should have had his back in his noble crusade to take down the hairy, scabid, scurvid extraterrestrial. How can we atone? It seems the best we can do in the wake of this heroic tragedy is to become more like Loki ourselves – more violent, more implacable, and yes, uglier.”
My son Dorian’s an artist though, and contributed this:
Loki looked like he was one hell of a cat and your son is one hell of an artist (obviously the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree).
RIP Loki.
You may remember, Anonster, the horror you felt when you first saw, not only his Brooster, but especially his Sarah Palin.
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2010/04/unveiling-uclas-new-mascot-the-brooster/
He’s now in grad school at UCLA, getting a masters in animation after his bachelor in history.
I do remember. Good for Dorian, you’ve got braggin’ rights!
Posting privileges now restored.