Trustees Want Changes, but Back Payzant : Education: Board calls city schools superintendent ‘outstanding’ in evaluation, while pushing for plans to close learning gaps and improve district’s image.

San Diego city schools Supt. Tom Payzant continues to enjoy the strong support of district trustees despite their disappointment in the efforts this past year to improve student achievement and their feelings that the district’s image is in need of repair.

In the school board’s annual evaluation of Payzant, trustees gave him a mark of “outstanding,” and, in particular, praised his ability to keep the district functioning despite the need to cut more than $24 million, or about 4%, from the 1991-92 budget.

Trustees, in their public summary of Payzant’s evaluation, said they are pleased with the direction he has set for the 121,000 students in the district--the nation’s eighth-largest urban system--but “are understandably anxious to see more results.”

Among key agenda items trustees hope Payzant can achieve in the upcoming school year are:

* Developing a detailed plan of how to close the achievement gap between white and Asian students, on the one hand, and black and Latino students, on the other, as well as how to hold teachers accountable for the success or failure of their students.

* Revamping curricula in technical and vocational education so students can specialize in those areas without sacrificing core subjects of English, math, science and social studies.

* Improving the district’s public relations by providing more information in a timely fashion.

* Continuing his attempt to balance his service on national boards with his need to respond to district concerns, especially its complex restructuring effort to give principals and teachers at individual schools more power to decide curricula and design programs.

Payzant, 51, has been San Diego superintendent since November, 1982, making him the senior superintendent in service among the nation’s 10 largest districts. His contract runs until June 30, 1994, with an annual salary of $140,000, although Payzant is forgoing his $15,000 raise for 1991-92 in light of the budget crisis.

The public statement on Payzant’s evaluation, read by board President Shirley Weber, distilled the differing concerns of the five board members and, as such, was couched in generalities.

But members were more specific in interviews conducted earlier this week, when they praised Payzant for his energy, for his enthusiasm and for his willingness to take criticism without holding grudges or getting his nose out of joint.

“Basically, he is very honest and does not manipulate people,” said Sue Braun, a new trustee who has expressed little reluctance to criticize specific district policies. “He’s unusually good-humored and takes criticism well.”

“Obviously, there is not dissatisfaction in any major way with Tom,” said Weber, a strong advocate of district efforts for Latino and black students. “Rather, we use his evaluation as a guide to give direction to him for the next year or two.”

Weber said Payzant was “open and candid about his own screw-ups” in a private self-evaluation he provides the board before they sit down to review his performance.

“We can reprimand him, tell him, for example, that he’s not getting information out to schools, and he’ll admit it, he takes change to heart,” she said.

Despite her strong rhetoric at times about district shortcomings, Weber conceded that she has to be realistic.

Although she wants the district to move faster in deciding how to hold teachers more accountable for the performance of children, “we’ve come to understand (as a board) that you can’t turn things around in a year . . . but that there are bits and pieces happening at many sites, and we’re beginning to identify particularly successful schools and programs.”

New board member John de Beck, the trustee most often at odds with Payzant on educational philosophy and consultant spending during the past year, nevertheless said that Payzant “is the right person to lead us into the restructuring we must do in the 1990s.”

De Beck, a retired teacher with 30 years’ service in San Diego, would like to see less travel by Payzant, fewer consultants and greater use of district teachers and administrators for training and leadership activities, and a stronger emphasis on technical or vocational education within the common core curriculum of math, English and history.

“But I look forward to many more years of Tom’s leadership and direction for the schools in San Diego,” he said, praising Payzant’s willingness to debate him without personalizing issues. “We, and the kids of this community, could not do better than having him here.”

In an interview earlier this week, Payzant said he understands the board’s desire that San Diego be his first priority.

Payzant said he wrestles with the balance between his desire to showcase San Diego on a national level through service on education boards and commissions, and the need to keep on top of the many problems still unmet in improving the achievement of the students here.

“I’m constantly struggling to balance the time that I’m here and how much I’m away, and what is the value added to the district from my having these additional activities,” he said.

He also conceded that trustees have a legitimate concern in asking whether he has overseen closely enough the district’s complex restructuring.

That effort is designed to boost student achievement by encouraging principals, teachers and clerical workers at individual schools to cooperate in designing new curriculum and ways of instruction.

“I’ve got good staff people, and it’s no good if we don’t have institutional change . . . if things just happen because of my personality.