Election menu gives voters a clear choice

It isn’t often in this era of poll-watching and fuzzy political

positions that voters have the opportunity to make a clear choice on

issues. But the upcoming Newport-Mesa Unified School Board election

provides such an opportunity in the contest between Wendy Leece and

Tom Egan.

Leece is on record more copiously than any other local

officeholder. About one-third of my “Education” file is devoted to

issues she has introduced or public statements she has made. Since

there is no such record for Tom Egan, I decided to assemble an

assortment of Leece’s definitive issue statements and weigh them

against Egan’s views on the same subjects. That required getting

together with Egan, whom I had never met.

He turned out to be both soft spoken and direct -- and no stranger

to irony and humor. He didn’t dodge any questions or equivocate, but

rather weighed and addressed them much in the manner of an aerospace

engineer, which he was through most of his working life.

Egan has lived on the Westside of Costa Mesa for 16 of the past 18

years. His wife, Eleanor, is a member of the Costa Mesa Planning

Commission and is active in local civic affairs. His two sons and

three stepdaughters all attended public schools. And when aerospace

took a downturn a few years ago, Egan returned to school to earn a

masters of science degree in civil engineering at UC Irvine when he

was 55.

So on to issues.

Leece has repeatedly tried to inject “creationism” and

“intelligent design” into public school science classes, saying most

recently: “Information we have today is able to show many flaws in

the Darwinian model of evolution ... and that there is fresh evidence

that supports and defends a concept of life based on intelligent

design.”

Said Egan: “The politically acceptable response is that it is not

a part of school policy or curriculum. Actually, intelligent design

is a way to get evangelizing into the classroom. It’s dogma, not

sciences, and teaching it in a science class would be appalling.”

In reacting to her rejection as school board president, Leece

wrote in the Pilot that her views were “overwhelmingly accepted in

this community.” Egan said: “I don’t know about her statistics. But I

do know that you can’t push your way to acceptance of your ideas. You

can only do it through respect and persuasion.”

During a difficult negotiation with the teachers’ union, Leece

said that “many teachers just show up, waiting for the clock to tick

until their retirement day. Trying to help these teachers will just

waste more money.”

Egan said: “My parents always voted for school bond issues. I

think of that when I look at the present incredible distrust of

government and the teaching business. It’s time to turn that around.

As I tour our school district, I see so many good things going on,

and I also see that teachers are next in importance to parents in the

support of our kids.”

Leece opposed a grant application to the states’ Early Mental

Health Initiative that addresses and treats at-risk students with

school adjustment problems and a grant to help fund Rea Elementary’s

Healthy Start school-based clinic, saying: “We’re creating a public

orphanage by being a nanny and a parent for kids.”

Egan said: “Any free money needs to be examined. Everything comes

with strings, and we need to be wary of acceptance that might hurt

us. It’s bogus to use the schools as a social force to do things the

federal government won’t do. However, by state law, public schools

must educate any kid that comes to the door, so we look for the best

education for the dollar. From that point, it is dumb to withhold

food from kids, who learn a lot better on a full stomach.”

During the public debate about her attempt to post the Ten

Commandments in our public schools, Leece said: “Let the kids know

the highest authority is God. That’s what I saw as necessary while I

was raising my kids. Everything we do revolves around these

commandments, a practical acknowledgment of honoring God.”

Egan said: “I believe in a bright line between church and state.

There’s no margin here. Any effort to cross that line is just

evangelizing.”

Leece tried to ban “Snow Falling on Cedars” and “Of Love and

Shadows” from the reading lists of Advanced Placement high school

English classes, saying: “In this community and in this school

district, do we allow students to read literature that contains very

passionate scenes that are of an adult nature and that have sexual

meaning?”

Egan said: “When I was a young father, my job was to help my kids

become independent of me at 18. So I encouraged my kids to make their

own decisions and to think critically. I figured if they were ready

for a piece of literature, they should read it. If they weren’t

ready, they knew it, and I wanted them to have the opportunity.”

There was more, but this will give you an idea of the

philosophical distance between these two candidates and make it

possible to decide which philosophy you would prefer to see calling

the shots in our school system.

During my meeting with Egan, when I was struggling with a menu

that listed a dozen different kinds of hamburgers, he was bemused at

my confusion and said: “You know, our schools are something like that

hamburger menu. When you and I went to school, there was a simple

curriculum, and not a lot of choice of hamburgers. Now it’s very

different, and we must deal with those complexities. I think I can

contribute there by helping bring in more and better technology.”

Finally, there was a small window into Tom Egan early in our

conversation.

When I asked Egan where he grew up, he said: “I’m still growing

up.”

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.