Jackie Goldberg
The longtime legislator on 23 years in office, term limits, and going back to a lifetime concern: ed
Her district office in the labyrinthian old Highland Park Masonic Temple is emptying out, and supplies and keepsakes are being packed in cardboard boxes. On November 30, state Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg surrenders her office to newcomer Kevin de León. Can this really be the conclusion of a 23-year political career for the often-controversial and outspoken Goldberg, who was defeated not once in a bid for elected office? Yes, it can, and Goldberg, who held two terms with the LAUSD Board, two terms in the L.A. City Council, and three two-year terms in the assembly, doesn't seem unhappy about it. She doesn't want to take another term-limited career step. She could have chosen to run for state senate and held office for another eight years, until she is 70.
"This was enough" she says now, reclining her imposing, well-dressed frame into the office chair she will soon leave behind. "Now I want to go back into education."
She was asked to throw her hat in the ring for the LAUSD superintendent's job, she says, but didn't make the cut of finalists. Now she wants to do some research-oriented classroom teaching. Those who know the details of her past may recall that her political career really began with the Free Speech movement at Berkeley, where she was a student over 40 years ago. And she's strongly considering going back to work where she taught first and longest - in the tough and severely underserved school district of Compton - before her surprise win for an L.A. School Board seat in 1983. Then, after a brief stint in Supervisor Gloria Molina's office, she snagged the 13th City Council District seat that has long been the city's legislative radical center, before charging on to fill her term-limited six years in the Assembly 45th District. It's been a wonderful ride. But at heart, she says, she remains an educator. "Where else to work but Compton?" she asks. "What difference can anyone make teaching in Beverly Hills?"
-Marc Haefele
CityBeat: Why do you want to go back to the classroom?
Jackie Goldberg: I want to help find out how we can reach the children who are truly left behind. I want to be on campus, in schools; I want to find and promote new ideas in education. To change, to try new things. For instance, mentoring. Now we have experienced teachers watching beginners. But I think that's backwards: beginners should watch experienced teachers, to learn what works and what doesn't. We need to change our assumptions.
It seems that one growing assumption is that classes need to be more scripted. Like France's schools, where the national superintendent knows what every teacher is doing at any moment.
Too much scripting drives out good teachers, I think. "No Child Left Behind" has done this to us. The average [LAUSD] teacher retirement age is now 62 - despite the draconian fiscal penalties [the teacher pension system] imposes for retiring before 65. That tells you what kind of teacher discontent you have. Then there is the overemphasis on test scores.
What's so bad about testing?
Testing should be used as a tool to tell how well you are succeeding. Instead, we're using it as a club to punish students. It's not the goal of education. The one-size-fits-all model of "No Child Left Behind" isn't right.
Speaking of school reform, this summer you didn't seem very enthusiastic about Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's plan to take over the Los Angeles Unified School District. How do you feel about it now that it has passed?
Antonio is a brilliant and charismatic leader. Now the LAUSD board is presented with a fait accompli. What I don't like is how he "pulled a Riordan" to pass the measure. He trashed the LAUSD so bad to pass it that he made the district seem like it was the enemy. That's what Dick Riordan did to get elected in 1993. He spread so much bad propaganda about Hollywood's decline that it fell into a slump; theaters closed.
But you don't sound altogether opposed to mayoral control of the LAUSD anymore.
I think it would have been better if the mayor had taken a year or so to sell the idea to all involved parties, including the LAUSD and teachers. That way he would have avoided much of the opposition to the plan. And I like some of the ideas Villaraigosa has, like three-school complexes. But his method to get his AB 1381 passed ended up with natural allies fighting one another, forgetting that the main point was to benefit low-income kids. To make the system care about dropouts. To educate all students. And we are ignoring that the schools need more money. That somehow, to get better schools, we have to raise taxes. To invest in the city's future - a safer, more prosperous future with better-educated children.
I was a little surprised that you didn't seem to get as much done legislatively in the Assembly as you did in about the same amount of time you spent in the L.A. City Council, where you made huge strides on issues such as the Living Wage. What was the difference?
Well, the Assembly isn't set up like the City Council. You've got 120 people in the legislature and if each proposes just 10 bills a session, that's 1,200 bills to contend with. I'm proud of our legislation on matters such as equalizing school district expenditures. But with term limits, you rarely get to do big bills on the most important issues - like water quality. The members don't have time to develop genuine expertise, and in the end, only lobbyists will have that expertise. That's bad for the process.
Last year, you were worried about Governor Arnold's "pro-business" initiative package. Those measures were resoundingly defeated.
And that defeat inspired quite a course correction for our governor, who was, after all, elected as a moderate. Then he acquired the Pete Wilson people, and the big money interests. He went to the right. Then there was the big initiative defeat. At least the Wilson people are gone now. He fired them. But let's not forget that Arnold is still not a moderate. Let alone a Democrat. He's still pro-business and anti-union. He's still very weak on the environment - he personally and strongly opposed the [Assembly's] Fran Pavley-Fabian Núñez anti-greenhouse gas bill until it passed. Now he's claiming it was his idea. Any Democrat who votes for him has to be kidding himself.
How are things on the home front with your life partner and your son?
My partner [writer, poet and activist Sharon Stricker] is winding down her responsibilities at her non-profit. My son Brian, is married and living in Highland Park. He's been coaching girls' high school basketball.
Suddenly, a loud, rolling jazz drum solo comes bursting out of her cell phone and, ever poised for action, Goldberg excuses herself to take the call. An assistant bursts in, clutching a large, loose bundle of papers, and in an instant, Jackie Goldberg is at work again, spending her last days in office exactly like all the rest: crazily busy, responsible, a public servant right up until the final moment.
Published: 11/16/2006
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