Brewer’s first lesson: welcome to chaos
NEVER MIND his lack of educational experience, the most important -- and disturbing -- thing you may ever learn about L.A.’s new school superintendent is that Singapore is his favorite city.
Last Saturday, I spent a few hours with retired Vice Adm. David L. Brewer, and I came away thinking that this impressive man’s strengths may be the very qualities that may undermine him in his new job.
Brewer was hungry when I picked him up in front of school district headquarters at 11:30 a.m., so I drove him over to Philippe’s on Alameda and Ord. Earlier that day, he had been shaking hands and trading photo ops with the mayor at Antonio Villaraigosa’s “Day of Service” in Watts, and now he needed to refuel. We found a table near the back where I could ask him questions while he ate his turkey sandwich and beet salad.
As you’d expect from a former naval officer, Brewer is a healthy man who prides himself on his discipline. “That’s Brewer family tradition,” he said as he spoke of his father, a vocational school teacher, and his grandfather, a postman and Tuskegee Institute graduate (class of 1912) who never arrived late or missed a day of work in his life.
Brewer’s most appealing quality is his old-fashioned combination of toughness and folksiness. He speaks in metaphors and catchy analogies, such as, “I’ll be on that like a hobo on a hot dog,” and his keen knowledge of African American history adds to his air of rootedness and self-assurance.
But whatever the admiral knows is less impressive than his knack for learning. After a long career in the Navy in which he changed posts every few years, he’s not afraid of what he doesn’t know and is confident of his ability to quickly grasp the inner workings of organizations. He is an avid student of management who seems to weave axioms from business bestsellers into every conversation. L.A. Unified for him is just another case study, a problem to be solved with direly needed military logistical genius and managerial expertise. “We have to look for successful models that we can use here,” he said.
Given his background, it’s not surprising that Brewer speaks of the problems of L.A.’s schools largely in organizational terms. He talks as though all he has to do is get the politicians and community leaders on the same page and re-engage the middle class with L.A. Unified. “My job is to set the tone for the district and get everyone to help the schools,” he says. He speaks about this city as if it were a cohesive, top-down organization with a clear chain of command -- teachers and parents can sort out who’s a captain and who’s a colonel -- linking him to his hundreds of thousands of foot soldiers, from that troubled second-grader at McKinley Avenue Elementary School in South Los Angeles to the newly arrived freshman at Grant High School in the San Fernando Valley.
I told him that he’s got another thing coming if he thinks Los Angeles is as neatly organized as the Navy. “Welcome to chaos,” I said.
By the time we hopped back into the car, I thought I was beginning to understand the man. He’s a pragmatist, though he distinguishes himself from politicians on the grounds that he “stands on principle.” He fancies himself a hands-on administrator but nonetheless strikes me as more than a little disengaged. Time will tell.
When I set up the interview, I had agreed to give Brewer my patented three- to four-hour tour of the city. I had hoped to give him a sense of the historical, ethnic, economic and jurisdictional layers that make L.A. so wonderfully incomprehensible.
I drove him through Elysian Park and up and down the steep streets of Echo Park. We cruised Pico-Union and, as we passed through Koreatown, bonded over our favorite hotel in Seoul. I tried to keep him engaged with a mixture of history and demographics, but by the time we reached Hancock Park I knew I had lost him.
Maybe he was drained from the sight of all those kids wearing orange Day of Service T-shirts with “Antonio Villaraigosa” printed on them. (Who wouldn’t be?) Maybe the epic Ohio State-Michigan showdown beckoned. Or maybe if you view the city as merely another organizational chart, the distinctive idiosyncrasies of its neighborhoods aren’t worth delving into. Already, he makes little to no distinction between the varied educational obstacles facing immigrant, black, and even homeless students. Whatever the case, though we were only a half an hour into the tour, I suggested that we call it a day. He quickly agreed.
Desperately trying to salvage my interview, on the way back to the school district I did pepper Brewer with a barrage of silly last-minute questions. Favorite food? Fish. Religion? Presbyterian, though he was raised African Methodist Episcopalian. How many times does he work out a week? Five to six. I pointed out Tommy’s Burgers as we passed Rampart. The favorite place he’s ever been to? Singapore. Why? Because it’s so clean and orderly. He’s going to love L.A.
