Attrition of Top Educators Erodes State’s Reputation

UC Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien’s surprising announcement that he will step down next year is but the latest in a series of resignations, retirements and non-renewals that are changing the face of education in the Golden State.

From public school systems to the state’s top universities, California’s education leaders are turning over so rapidly that many current chief executives can count their years in the job on the fingers of one hand.

Though shorter tenures for top educators appear to be a national trend, experts say California’s record is worse than most and reflects the state’s fading reputation as a national leader in education.

“Everyone sits and watches California because it was in the lead in higher education,” said Marlene Ross of the national American Council on Education. “Now people don’t see that same commitment.”

With financial support for education lagging behind other states, public demands for accountability rising, and education issues becoming ever more politicized, the state’s top educators are leaving at increasing rates. Consider:

* Virtually the entire top leadership of the prestigious University of California has changed within the last six years, during a period of embarrassing disputes and disclosures. Tien’s departure will leave the system--which appointed its president less than one year ago--with no campus chancellor with more than five years on the job.

* Nearly three-quarters of the administrators running California’s community colleges--the largest such system in the nation--have left their jobs within the last three years, including Chancellor David Mertes, who stepped down last month.

* The Los Angeles Unified School District is looking for its third top executive in seven years, since Supt. Sid Thompson announced that he will retire next summer after four years in the post.

Education experts say the never-ending game of musical chairs hurts educational quality, because reform requires continuity and school chiefs accomplish less during short-term stays. Attracting top candidates for the vacancies is getting tougher all the time, as the challenges to the state’s education systems mount.

“I think it’s as critical an issue as any we face,” said Cal State University system Chancellor Barry Munitz, the dean of the state’s college system chiefs, with five years at the helm of Cal State. “They’re wonderful jobs in many ways. But fewer and fewer people want to do it. And fewer people want to do it for long.”

A survey by the American Council on Education found that the nation’s higher education chiefs--heads of college campuses and university systems--stayed in their jobs an average of 6.7 years in 1990. That number is expected to shrink in a new survey, due out later this year, tracking tenure lengths through 1994, council officials said.

The average job life span of the nation’s big city school superintendents has fallen to three years, down from nearly five years in the late 1970s, according to the Council of Great City Schools. The group represents about 50 of the nation’s biggest school districts, including Los Angeles, the country’s second largest.

The flurry of turnovers began last August, when the University of California’s Board of Regents named UC San Diego Chancellor Richard Atkinson as president of the 162,000-student system, its third president of the 1990s. He replaced Jack Peltason, who resigned after three years in the top job.

In September, disgruntled trustees of the nine-campus Los Angeles Community College District, the nation’s largest, decided not to rehire Chancellor Neil Yoneji, whose two-year contract expires this October. Replacing him will be Texas college administrator William Segura, who was hired and given a four-year contract last month.

In November, the head of the state community college system announced his intention to step down, blaming leadership battles and rapid turnover among officials in the 71 community college districts, which operate 106 campuses and serve 1.4 million students. A search committee is looking for his replacement and plans to present a list of finalists for the job to the system’s Board of Governors in September.

In February, UCLA Chancellor Charles Young, the longest-serving head of a major U.S. university, announced his departure. Passed over for UC president in 1992 and at odds with the regents’ rollback of affirmative action in admissions, Young said he will retire next year after 29 years in the job.

In April, the LAUSD’s Thompson, citing his frustrations as well as his age (he recently turned 65) said he had decided to leave the school system next summer, when his four-year contract runs out. Though he has served only three years, that is still longer than his predecessor, Bill Anton, who quit after 26 months, citing micro-management by the school board and feuds with the district’s teachers union.

And on Tuesday, Tien--who spent more than 30 years at the University of California and six as UC Berkeley’s chancellor--shocked the state’s academic establishment with the news that he will step down next summer. A strong supporter of affirmative action, Tien had reportedly grown increasingly frustrated with UC’s bureaucracy and the perceived politicization of its Board of Regents.

It is the most sweeping turnover among education leaders here in nearly 30 years, said former UC system President Clark Kerr. And its repercussions probably will ripple beyond the state’s borders.

“I think the state of California is undergoing a very difficult episode in its evolution,” said Tom Ingram, president of the national Assn. of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. “People are concerned the state might lose its stature and standing in the eyes of the rest of the country.”

Here and nationally, educators cite the same pattern of issues driving leaders out the door:

There is political meddling by governing boards, which are under pressure themselves from a tight-fisted public frustrated with stagnating achievement and rising tuition. And there are mounting challenges that threaten to overwhelm public schools and colleges, including an influx of immigrant students and a chronic shortage of money for everything from campus repairs to instructor salaries.

The problems have been exacerbated in California by the limits of Proposition 13, which curtailed state spending; the state’s recent economic recession, and voter-approved term limits, which have led to a rapid turnover among the state’s lawmakers.

Thirty years ago, California ranked near the top among states in financial support for its elementary and secondary public schools. Its higher education system was considered a model for the nation.

Today, California ranks 42nd out of 50 states in per pupil spending in kindergarten through 12th grade. And recession-induced funding cuts and resulting fee hikes have pushed more than 200,000 students from the rolls of the state’s public colleges and universities in the past 10 years.

“It’s not hard to understand how people came to feel, ‘Gee, it’s not as much fun as it used to be,’ ” said Bill Wenrich, a former chancellor of the San Diego Community College District. Wenrich left California in 1990 to head the Dallas County district in Texas. He said he found better funding, a higher salary and fewer problems than he ever had in California.

Veteran administrator Mary Lee agrees that the headaches increasingly outweigh the joys of education’s top jobs.

“People are saying, ‘Who needs it?’ You are just beaten to death as a college president,” said Lee, who was passed over recently for the presidency of Pierce College in Woodland Hills. She had served for 13 years--one of the longest stints of any Los Angeles community college president--as head of Valley College in Van Nuys.

“You used to find people staying a long time in places,” said Lee. “But those days are gone.”