Roy Romer

I take issue with your June 7 editorial in opposition to the selection of Roy Romer as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. More likely, the school board has stumbled into just the right choice to lead the district for the next few years.

The LAUSD needs a politically savvy and well-connected chief executive rather than an educational administration visionary, if that isn’t an oxymoron. While Romer seeks to neutralize the formidable adversary of educational improvement, the inexorable desire of state politicians to run local public schools, vision (and execution of that vision) can be the responsibility of the local school board, parents, teachers and campus-based middle managers. The LAUSD may have made the right decision, even if for a series of wrong reasons.

DAVID C. COHEN

Bakersfield

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There are a couple of obvious problems here. You have a school district that went from one of the finest in the world to one of the worst. So our solution is to bring in not a seasoned educator, not an accomplished industrialist, not a representative of the community, but a foreign politician! Not just any politician will do for the district. We have to find one who is actively engaged in fund-raising for one of the two parties.

What was the board thinking? Do they think that an outside Democratic National Convention Committee fund-raiser is going to bring the Latino community together behind him? Do they think that the business community will rally around this guy and help solve the problems of education? I think the only people who can be satisfied with this selection are the teachers union management (part of the problem). If it was so difficult to find a “qualified” candidate, maybe we weren’t offering the right package. The solution to this difficult problem should not be to select a lesser candidate for political convenience.

FRANK C. ALVIDREZ

Lancaster