Info on Carlos Garcia, New Superintendent
Carlos Garcia was the superintendent for Clark County School District (NV) from 2000 to July 1, 2005. Clark County, the nation’s fifth largest school district, has over 300 schools and more than 280,000 students.
During his tenure at Clark County, overall student test scores remained around the 50th percentile in the nation. In an interview with Las Vegas Now, Garcia said that he thought that the scores are adequate, but with more state funds students would have performed better. Garcia says the problem rests in class size. He pointed out to the Las Vegas Now reporter, that their middle and high school teachers have 35 to 40 kids in one class. Link to LasVegasNow.com story
According to a article printed by the Las Vegas Life in January 2002, Garcia came from east LA and graduated from Banning High School. Garcia then attended Claremont Men’s College and got his teaching credential. Garcia was a prinicpal and teacher in several California districts, including San Francisco, Watsonville, Ontario, and La Puente. He was principal of Horace Mann Middle School from 1988 to 1991. Articles have noted that at that time, Horace Mann MS had a waiting list. Currently, Horace Mann MS is in its third year of “program improvement.”
He was the superintendent of Sanger (CA) Unified School District from 1994 to 1997 and then the superintedent of Fresno Unified School District from 1997 to 2000, where several sources note that Garcia had earlier spent three years as an area superintendent for Fresno. At the time that Garcia was superintendent, Fresno Unified had 79,000 students.
Carlos Garcia came to Clark County in July 2000. When he arrived in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Life article notes that Garcia’s proposal was to decentralize administration and put the middle and high school on a block schedule. Neither appeared to have implemented during his tenure. Garcia also pushed for primary-grade teachers to be drilled in literacy techniques to help stem the dropout rate.
The Las Vegas Life article notes that Garcia is a great salesman and encouraged everyone at the school district (including the key people in the schools-janitors and nutrition workers) to call him “Carlos.” The Las Vegas Life article noted that Garcia was not known for his modesty. In his application to Clark County, Garcia stated, “My leadership is honest, warm, sensitive, caring, collaborative, humorous, demanding and, above all, visionary.” The Las Vegas Live goes on to state that Garcia wrote an addendum to the requested list of “professional accomplishments by order of significance.” Garcia wrote, “Note that I am only listing my top 10. For additional, please review my résumé.”
Here is the link to the Las Vegas Life Article on Garcia, January 2002.
During his tenure at Clark County, he fought for full-day kindergarten. When he left, all-day kindergarten was offered at only some schools in Clark County. In an interview with LasVegasNow.com, Garcia noted that he had implemented an alegbra initiative where 70% of middle schoolers were enrolled in alegbra. (Alegbra is required for eighth grade students in California.)
But in a review of his tenure by the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Oct. 23, 2005, they note that during Garcia’s five-year tenure, students in grades fourth, eighth and tenth lost ground in every annual test, except for fourth grade science. The Review Journal also notes that Garcia’s salary (without benefits) went up from $200,00 in 00-01 to $212,241 in 04-05.
In the Review-Journal article, Garcia defended his administration’s accomplishments by pointing out that the number of limited English speakers increased from 14% in 2000-01 to 21% in 2004-05. Graduation rates were mixed. The Review Journal showed that their first year of data in 2002-03 was a graduation rate of 59%, 71.7% in 2003-04 and 62.7% in 2004-05. Garcia again blamed the mixed results of his administration on the lack of state funding. Here is the Review-Journal article of Oct. 23, 2005 on Overview on Garcia’s Tenure at Clark County.
The Daily-Review does not note that Garcia’s “A+ Plan” that he presented on at a number of workshops. In a February 2003 newsletter to staff at Clark County the newsletter touts several programs of Garcia’s “A+Plan.” In an outline about his presentation to the Milken Family Foundation, Garcia described his “A+ Plan” as a system “to improve achievement, access and accountability.” Here is the link to the Feb. 2003 newsletter to CCSD staff
The February 2003 district newsletter notes that Garcia and his staff had implemented a new teacher evaluation system which measured the educators onf five items-teachers on planning and evaluation, assessing student achievement, maintaining an approapriate learning environment, providing meaningful instruction and meeting professional responsibilities.
Garcia also put into place a new management model. The newsletter states, “CCSD is implementing an internationally recongized management model that will increase efficiency and standardize procedures, improve accountablity and build confidence in the district.” This was not one of the measures that Garcia noted two years later as one of his administration’s accomplishments.
In a August 2005 press release by McGraw Hill Education, it noted that Garcia, with more than 30 years of experience in education, has used his career to give a particular emphasis to effective instruction for non-English speaking students has been a particular focus. The McGraw-Hill highlights that Garcia was named the 2005 Nevada Superintendent of the Year by the Nevada Association of School Administrators, past president of the California Latino Superintendents Association and past chairman of the Board of Directors of the Council of Great City Schools, a coalition of the nation’s largest urban public school districts.
The SF Chronicle and other publications have noted an incidence where Superintendent Garcia use the “n—-” word when talking to students about self-esteem during the beginning of his tenure. This was widely reported in the press and was according to the SF Chronicle, the first question that the SF Board of Education asked him in their first interview with him.
But there was also an inquiry in 2004 by the Nevada Commission on Ethics on the charge that he used his influence on a subordinate (Walt Rulffles, then assistant superintendent and now Garcia’s successor as the superintendent for Clark County) to a personal advantage. The charge surrounded the purchase of a Ford Explorer 4x4 for $22,616 with a luxury package for an additional $7,300. The Nevada Commission on Ethics ruled that since Garcia’s contract clearly stated that he was entitled to a vehicle and that the assistant superintendent had come to an independent conclusion that the superintendent’s car should be traded for a newer model, the charge did not have merit. Here is the link to the Nevada Commission of Ethics Report.
It will be interesting to see how we will report on Mr. Garcia five years from today about his tenure as the superintendent of SFUSD.
May 28th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Note that Garcia has not been hired in SFUSD yet. He’s the lone finalist.
Garcia has been on my radar in the past because I’ve been an outspoken critic of controversial, for-profit Edison Schools, and he brought 7 Edison Schools into Las Vegas. This doesn’t totally damn him in my eyes because Edison was going around the country making slick sales pitches, and I can’t completely fault him for trying what appeared to be a bold, visionary innovation. I’d love to know what he thinks now, though. (For more on Edison Schools, go to: http://www.pasasf.org/edison/edison.html )
I was reading some commentary online by education commentator Jonathan Kozol about urban superintendents. Thought I’d share some quores from Kozol:
Here he is referring to urban superintendents, especially those who are black or Latino. “I’ve known several of these superintendents in two or three different jobs. I’ve followed them as they were hired in one system, welcomed in upbeat editorials, then progressively broken down, fired, and then hired somewhere else. A lot of these men and woman talk to me quite candidly. Often late at night, especially when there are no crowds around, we just sit and have a beer and talk. It’s a tough job. They feel they’re being bludgeoned by bombastic voices of right-wing ideology. There’s almost a national assumption that these folks are nincompoops, that they’re all incompetent. It’s totally unfair. Most of these superintendents are deeply committed, tremendously intelligent human beings who have to shoulder all the
worries of our society. It’s as if the position of school superintendent was invented so that in every city we can find one man or woman to die for our sins. Urban superintendents typically get
fired within two years, or else they quit, or die in office.”
From a different interview:
“In general, I admire urban superintendents. I’ve often said they’ve got the toughest job in America. I think it’s the same as the biblical job my ancestors had in Egypt, making bricks without straw. And some
of these superintendents are very good at it. In fact, a number of them have been heroic.
“I am always troubled by the casual way in which the media disparages urban school officials as though they were a bunch of idiots. Whatever the immediate victories or successes some of these people have and
whatever missteps they might make, they are by and large decent, moral, dedicated people. And in seeing them at work and seeing the heartaches, I used to wonder whether any pay could make that job
endurable, unless you had incredible stamina.”
June 7th, 2007 at 9:36 am
As a teacher in san Francisco I say this or any superintendent deserves “NO HONEYMOON” from the employees of the District. Everyone of these characters comes in as a Messiah; all are big disappointments. See Rojas’ “Reconstitution” fiasco and the equally odious Ackerman “Dream School” scam. Look closely at the remuneration package. (Previous packages have only served to bid up the salaries of big city supeintendent mediocrities. Watch out for his people he brings in, and in particular watch out for anyone associated with Harvard or Columbia Universities. Everybody should do an exhaustive Google on him and get ready to pounce fast, when he missteps.
What the District needs is a coherent discipline plan for low-performing populations. That will never happen because the Supe will never bite that bullet.
June 7th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Jonathan Kozol’s point is that urban superintendents are being asked to do the impossible. We start out with sky-high expectations for them (cluelessly oblivious to the fact that this happens over and over and over again, everywhere). Then when they don’t live up to the sky-high expectations, we turn on them.
The Bay Guardian this week, for example, demands that Garcia close the achievement gap. Well, duh, Tim — nobody, anytime, anywhere has found a magical formula for doing this. The gap is less in some places, but we haven’t seen economics disaggregated from race in those figures, either. (That is, is the African-American and Latino cohort in some places more economically disadvantaged than in others, and how does that factor into academic achievement? This is the widely accepted explanation for why SFUSD’s gap is larger — the exodus of the AA and L middle-class.)
WHy not just ask the poor man to end war, cure cancer and end world hunger while he’s at it?
I would hope not to be as negative as Vince sounds (start out with low expectations and still turn on him savagely if he disappoints in any way), but I agree with the basic notion — we shouldn’t expect miracles nor treat the guy like a god when he arrives. He’s a normal human being and we want him to be an effective manager; he’s not going to turn water into wine.
June 8th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Me, negative?
I just expect the Chanber of commerce and the Chronicle, and Ken Garcia of the Ex, and each of the usual suspects to bring out the praise machine. The initiative he comes out with, will be declared a success before they are implemented, and teachers will be blamed for being obsticles. The achievement gap can only be addressed if the pathology of the HOOD is cured. And that is fundamentally not a schools issue.
Teachers are in negotiations, that is the most pressing issue confronting the District. I, for one will not salute the Supe’s flag!
June 8th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
I agree with all that. These same voices seem to engage over and over in the same pattern — miracle superintendent arrives in town! — and then tearing the person doesn when he/she doesn’t live up to the impossible expectations. They don’t seem to recognize that they and their colleagues all repeat the pattern over and over.
I was hoping that pointing this out would discourage repetition of that pattern: Do not expect walks-on-water miracles from this person (as Tim Redmond has already indicated he plans to do — get a clue, Tim); do try to expect sound, intelligent, competent management, and call on Garcia to live up to THOSE (reasonable) expectations. (And I agree about the pathology of the ‘hood.)
June 8th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Espero que no se les vaya ocurrir contratar al Sr. Garcia para nuevo superintendent de su distrito. El Sr. Garcia dejó un verdadero desastre en el distrito de Las Vegas donde los padres de familia fuerón los principales ignorados por este Sr. Hay muchas pruebas de su incapacidad e incompetencia para ese puesto que solo utiliza para jugar politica y poner a sus amigos en posiciones donde igual que el, no hacen nada.
Se acordaran de mis palabras en algunos años si no ponen atención a estas letras.
Un padre de familia de Las Vegas
June 8th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
I know enough Spanish to understand but not to translate. “Parent” was not happy with Garcia and says he played political games and gave jobs to his friends who did no work. Hmm.
June 9th, 2007 at 2:09 am
FYI……
San Francisco may want to do a little homework on who it hires. I mean, only if character counts.
The link below goes to a story written when Carlos Garcia left the Clark County School District in Nevada. The test deal you’ll read about was even stinkier than first thought. It turns out there are multiple NO BID multimillion dollar testing contracts, for multiple years, IN multiple counties across Nevada—ALL BENEFITING McGraw Hill (the company Garcia left to work for). NO CHILD, ER, EXECUTIVE LEFT BEHIND
Regarding Garcia’s interviews held in Las Vegas, last Friday, some folks were downright upset that interviews were held for Garcia at CCSD district offices at district expense for someone who is not even our superintendent anymore. What’s worse is with a quorum of our elected trustees in attendance, it may be a violation of open meetings laws since the meetings weren’t properly noticed. A complaint is being drafted to the Nevada Attorney General to decide if laws were violated.
Mr. Garcia probably isn’t such a bad guy, just maybe a little morally and/or ethically challenged - you decide. You guys can have him back, we don’t mind.
http://www.lvcitylife.com/articles/2005/09/01/opinion/knappster/knappster.prt
June 9th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Hello, what I’m trying to say is that you need to be very aware of the poor performance of Mr Garcia during his tenure. He left the district on shambles, really I’m not exaggerating. He hired many of hes cronies to high positions on the district and now we have many problems
because they are like mr. garcia, very incompetents and with no care about education…
why the people from san francisco didn’t met with the parents of las vegas and instead, they went to talk to the only ones who may say something good, his friends and accomplishes who like him, didnt care about the san francisco education and the terrible damage his going to make to many students and general communnity.
I can’t afford to travel to san francisco to show proofs of what I’m talking about, but I know there may be somebody who really care and make the parents of clark county be heard…!!!
I’m really sorry about my english…
June 11th, 2007 at 6:37 am
Thank you, Concerned Parent. Do you have any links that of press stories where these instances were reported in the press, including the Spanish language press?
Thanks.
June 15th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
You can find lots of stuff on Garcia if you go to:
Lasvegassun.com then in the search and/or archives section put in Carlos Garcia and over 1000 articles will come up - the good, the bad and the ugly.
June 15th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
On the Nevada Commission on Ethics. Garcia had his third car in three years - he did not need a new car. He personally went to the dealership with his assistant in tow and purchased the vehicle with the luxury items which appeared in a separate bill he hoped nobody would find.
He let another take the hit for him (great moral courage) saying he never knew about the vehicle till it mysteriously showed up in his parking spot one day. (he actually said this to the school board in public)
The ethics commission therefore did NOT conduct an investigation and closed the case.
This was after all Nevada
June 16th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Thanks, Augie. While Garcia will be limited to $8,000 for his car till 2010, he can try that same trick that he did in Nevada with the hcar, with other items and pet projects of his.
It sounds like Nevada and San Francisco are a lot alike(sigh).
June 16th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
I am very unhappy with the hasty hiring of Carlos Garcia, especially when Latino parents feel betrayed by him and he uses the “N” word, I think those are red flags, to AT LEAST slow down the process..
I personally, as mother to one African American and two Salvadorenos, cannot and will not forgive the use of the “N” word. From what I read when a STUDENT asked him what he was going to do about racism, his answer was “N—–s come in all colors”? Hello? What kind of a response is that to valid question, that evidently he has no answer for. Simple me could have thought of a better response, “diversity training, cultural sensitivity training, conflict resolution and peer education”, to name a few off the top of my head.
I feel that when African American and Latino students’ achievement gap with the white and Asian students is so wide, it is shameful to hire a Superintendent that has demonstrated such disrespect and insensitivity to the Black community. It does not matter to me the Jesse Jackson, who is one of my heroes, “forgave” him, I don’t.
I think after Ackerman left the district with the Black community feeling that is was racism, (disclosure; that I was the parent plaintiff to challenge the severance package, but it was the contract and the BoE that I was critical of, not necessarily the Superintendent, but still I recognize that it did result in a lot of hurt and anger, that I understand perfectly well & regret) this is extremely insensitive to hire someone with questionable commitment to the Black community.
Three BoE members that I support hired him, so now I am forced to take a leap of faith and trust that he will bring more positive than negative to the SFUSD, and work tirelessly to build bridges with the Black community and use his ingenuity to improve their academic achievement. And of course I expect him to work effectively within the Latino community as well. I just imagine this will come more naturally that working with the Black community.
I am outraged however by the contract and this has nothing to do with who is the Superintendent.
Doesn’t anyone, besides the teachers, paras and other staff, go into PUBLIC education for the best interests of our children?
Since when did public education decide that it can only attract top quality administrators by competing, salary wise and benefits wise with private industry, who have the advantage of being able to raise revenue or reduce expenses without hurting our children?
Why don’t Superintendents have to “earn” their top pay?
I have a job with a “maximum” salary range, but it takes me 6 years to get there. I do not start out at the top range, I get a step increase each year I earn it.
Why should the Superintendent start out at his maximum salary when his performance is unproven?
This goes way beyond Carlos Garcia, he may turn out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but the whole mindset of BoEs across the nation.
Why should Superintendents earn more than Mayors? And it sickens me that someone earning a quarter of a million year, is offered a 30k housing allowance in top of his salary, when teachers have to commute to SF everyday because there is no affordable housing for teachers in the City.
I would have a lot more confidence in Superintendents who would do the job for a paltry!, say $180k, no housing allowance, no pension until 10 or 15 years with the district, and certainly no lifetime health insurance benefits until after 10 or 15 years with the district.
I do not understand how after 5 years per employer, these district hopping administrators end up with annual pensions from multiple districts and no one is doing anything about it.
I know the Superintendent’s compensation doesn’t sound like a lot in comparison to the overall SFUSD budget, which I think is around $500 million, but when the BoE is forced to layoff paras who work directly with students, mid-school year, because the district is a few K short, then suddenly all of these administrator’s compensation packages are in fact a critical factor for our student’s well being.
I welcome Carlos Garcia to SFUSD, and am praying that my gut is wrong and the judgment of the three commissioners that voted for him whom I have trusted is proven sound.
I am very unhappy with the hiring of Carlos Garcia, when Latino parents feel betrayed and he uses the “N” word, I think those are red flags, to AT LEAST slow down the process..
I personally, as mother to one African American and two Salvadorenos, cannot and will not forgive the use of the “N” word. From what I read when a STUDENT asked him what he was going to do about racism, his answer was “Ns” come in all colors? Hello? What kind of a response is that to valid question that evidently he has no answer for. Simple me could have thought of a better response, “diversity training, cultural sensitivity training, conflict resolution and peer education” to name a few off the top of my head.
I feel that when African American and Latino students’ achievment gap with the white and Asian students is so wide, it is shameful to hire a Superintendent that has demonstrated such disrespect nad insensitivty to the Black community. It does not matter to me the Jesse Jackson, who is one of my heroes, “forgave” him, I don’t.
I think after Ackerman left the district with the Black community feeling that is was racism, (disclosure that I was the parent plaintiff to challenge the severance package, but it was the contract and the BoE that I was critical of, not necessarily the Superintendent)this is very, very insensitive to hire someone with questionable commitment to their community.
Three BoE members that I support hired him, so now I am forced to take a leap of faith and trust that he will bring more positive than negative to the SFUSD, and work tirelessly to build bridges with the Black community and use his ingenuity to improve their academic achievement. And of course I expect him to work well within the Latino community.
I am outraged however by the contract.
Doesn’t anyone, besides the teachers, paras and other staff, go into PUBLIC education for the best interests of our children?
Since when did public education decide that it can only attract top quality adminstrators by competing, salary wise and beneifts wise with private industry, who have the advantage of being able to raise revenue or reduce expenses without hurting our children?
Why don’t they have to “earn” their top pay?
I have a job with a “maximum” salary range, but it takes me 6 years to get there. I do not start out at the top range, I get a step increase each year I earn it.
Why should the Superintendent start out at his maximum salary when his performance is unproven?
This goes way beyond Carlos Garcia, he may turn out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but the whole mindset of BoEs across the nation.
Why should Superintendents earn more than Mayors? And it sickens me that someone earning a quarter of a million year, is offered a 30k housing allowance in top of his salary, when teachers have to commute everyday because there is no affordable housing for teachers in the City.
I would have a lot more confidence in Superintendent who would do the job for a paltry, say $180k, no housing allowance, no pension until 10 or 15 years with the district, and certainly no lifetime health insurance benefits until 10 or 15 years with the district.
I do not understand how after 5 years per employer these district hopping admininstrators end up with annual pensions from multiple districts and no one is doing anything about it.
I know the Superintendent’s compensation doesn’t sound like a lot in comparison to the overall SFUSD budget, which I think is around $500 million, but when the BoE is forced to layoff paras who work directly with students, mid-school year, because the district is a few k short, then suddenly all of these administrator’s compensation packages are in fact a critical factor for our student’s well being.
I welcome Carlos Garcia to SFUSD, and am praying that my gut is wrong and the judgement of the three commissioners that voted for him, whom I have trusted, is proven sound.
June 16th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
OOOPS, THOUGHT I COPIED AND PASTED A CORRECTED VERSION OF MY COMMENTS OVER THE ORIGINAL COMMENTS, LOOKS LIKE, IT POSTED THE UNCORRECTED VERSION TWICE.. SORRY!
June 16th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Tami,
Just to be specific - it was a black student who asked him about racism in the schools and he shot back at him “N…..s come in all colors.” Would he have done that to a white student?
June 16th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
I am not sure I understand your question. But no, I do not think that he would have answered a white student that way. I am very embarrassed that my post posted double and without my corrections…
But I think I was emphatic— I find the use if the N word unacceptable because it is a racist, offensive slur and it diminished the importance of the question. Obviously the youth was being subjected to racism and was looking to this “highly qualified” adult for a solution and what he got was an insult, that was even more intolerable because it was directed at a child– who is supposed to be working for.