Secretary pick sparks outcry in California
http://www.bakersfield.com/24hour/nation/story/2355159p-10593344c.html
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press Writer
Posted: Friday April 29th, 2005, 6:07 PM
Last Updated: Friday April 29th, 2005, 6:07 PM
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed the superintendent of San Diego schools Friday to be state education secretary, a pick that alarmed the teachers union and signaled continued friction between the governor and organized labor.
Alan Bersin, 58, will take the job when Richard Riordan resigns in June. Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor and a political ally of Schwarzenegger, announced Wednesday that he will step down.
"Alan is a reformer, and that's what I love about him," Schwarzenegger said at his downtown office with Bersin at his side.
In Bersin, Schwarzenegger found an ally whose record suggests a willingness to confront organized labor, which has been feuding with the governor over school funding and other issues.
Bersin, a former federal prosecutor who has led San Diego schools since 1998, pushed reforms that caused division in the district. He emphasized literacy and math skills, hired highly paid consultants and increased teacher training.
Test scores went up, but some parents and teachers said the improvements came at the cost of arts, music and other elective programs.
"During his seven-year tenure in San Diego, Alan Bersin's top-down bureaucratic style divided the community, hurt teacher morale and failed to significantly improve student learning," said Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Association.
The choice "shows how out of touch the governor is," said Terry Pesta, president of the San Diego Education Association, which represents 9,000 teachers and staff in the San Diego Unified School District.
The education secretary advises the governor and promotes policies but has no authority over the Education Department, which is led by state Superintendent Jack O'Connell.
"I'm not a governor that represents the unions - I represent the people," the governor said when asked about his strained relations with the union. "They are against the reforms that we want."
Alan D. Bersin, a University of San Diego law professor, is slated to become the new U.S. attorney for San Diego and Imperial counties, legal and political sources said Thursday.
Sen. Barbara Boxer has recommended to President Clinton that he nominate Bersin, 46, a Rhodes scholar with the President in the late 1960s, for the highly coveted position of top federal law enforcement official in the two counties, both of which border Mexico.
Sam Chapman, Boxer's top aide, would say only that the senator has sent her recommendation to Clinton. Although the President makes the formal nomination, senators are usually accorded considerable deference on these appointments.
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Chapman said that in making her selection, Boxer "relied heavily" on the advice of a committee of eight San Diegans, headed by Sister Sally M. Furay, provost at the University of San Diego. The committee included three Latino lawyers, two of whom are women; retired federal Judge J. Lawrence Irving, and discount store executive Sol Price.
Bersin worked at the Los Angeles law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson from 1975 until last summer when he moved to San Diego. His wife, Lisa Foster--an attorney and Common Cause leader--is from San Diego, and Bersin was active in the Clinton campaign there.
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... Sergio Feria, president of the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Assn., said Bersin would do a fine job and bring a fresh perspective to the office.
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Although Bersin has never been a prosecutor, he specialized in complex fraud cases at Munger Tolles. He represented the Philippine government in its efforts to recover millions of dollars looted from the country's treasury by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife, Imelda.
In another high profile case, Bersin was one of several Munger Tolles lawyers who helped Salomon Bros. clean house in the aftermath of financial scandals at the brokerage firm.
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A native of Brooklyn, Bersin studied political science at Harvard University, where he was an all Ivy League football player. After spending two years as a Rhodes scholar in England, he studied law at Yale University and moved to California in 1974.