Biography

Name: Bradford Senden

Age: 55

Education: B.A. University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D. University of Indiana

Occupation: Political campaign strategist; co-author of "School Finance Elections: A Comprehensive Planning Model for Success"

Home: San Ramon

Family: Three children, ages 17, 23, and 28*

By Jackie Burrell

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

April 25, 2005

Brad Senden's new book has neither superheroes nor ingenues, but parents and school superintendents are snapping up "School Finance Elections" faster than any beach read.

That's because the 131-page volume offers cash-strapped school districts hope, backed by decades of national political campaign experience.

Or it offers Machiavellian tips on how to manipulate voters. It all depends on who's doing the reading -- parents and educators or taxpayer associations, who recoil at the very notion of professionally run school financing campaigns.

Five years worth of budget cuts and pink slips have driven most of California schools into a state of red-inked desperation. With increasing frequency, school leaders are turning to parcel taxes to save academic programs, and school bonds to renovate decaying classrooms and fund new construction.

Increasingly, their grass-roots volunteers are turning to consultants like San Ramon's Senden, Sacramento's William Berry and Oakland's Larry Tramutola for guidance.

"If somebody wants to be a California superintendent, they're going to have to learn to raise money," Senden said simply. "What we are is just a body of experience."

In a world of $25,000-a-plate fund-raising dinners, it's no secret that state ballot wars are expensive affairs, led by professional campaign managers who saturate the airwaves and flood mailboxes with glossy fliers touting their cause.

Local school tax campaigns may be small fish in that big political sea, but garnering the two-thirds vote necessary to pass a parcel tax, particularly on a crowded ballot, takes a concerted campaign and legions of volunteers.

"It's so hard to get two-thirds of the people to pay attention," Senden said.

In March, just 12 of 27 school ballot measures passed in California.

But after last month's parcel-tax victories in the Acalanes and Walnut Creek school districts, where Senden ran the pre-campaign polls, this political strategist and medieval literature specialist may earn best-seller status yet.

The how-to manual Senden penned with Minnesota superintendent Don Lifto made the American School Board Journal's must-read list in March. The book sits atop superintendents' nightstands from California to New Jersey.

Senden never set out to be a California school tax guru. He was more at home in a Cistercian monastery, studying 13th century books and writing his doctoral dissertation. Or, after his mother told him to get a real job, selling glossy print jobs for a publishing company. He cut his political teeth in the Indiana state legislature, serving as chief of staff for Democratic leaders.

In 1988, Senden was running Midwestern congressional candidates when an acquaintance from the Acalanes High School District tapped him for help with the district's school bond campaign. Senden discovered that his particular skill set translated perfectly.

It was all about voter demographics, phone banks and clearly delivered messages -- not the wordy, 16-page manifesto the high school district was using to woo voters back then. Readers dozed off before they ever got to the part about cracked classroom walls, dry rot and seismically unstable buildings.

Campaign chairman Ellen Amen, the tireless Orinda volunteer whose name graces the exterior of Miramonte High School's library, backed him up when Senden sent photography students out to capture a dose of reality for new brochures.

"I realized after the first (school campaign) that it's a lot more rewarding," Senden said. "Buildings get built. There are programs you help sustain."

Three years later, he was back, this time for an Acalanes parcel tax.

"Ellen tracked me down in an ice storm in Fort Wayne and said, 'You've got to be here tomorrow,'" Senden said. "Three days later, we were doing phone bank training."

These days, Senden runs political campaigns for schools in California, the Midwest and Kentucky. He has spent the past year assisting campaigns in Walnut Creek, San Ramon, Acalanes and other districts.

Senden's strength is his grasp of community concerns, said Acalanes Superintendent Jim Negri. The strategist understands that different segments of the community have different issues that need to be addressed.

"He is a great listener. He has a variety of approaches, multiple strategies that fit the nature of the campaign committee," Negri said, then added with a laugh, "He has a phrase, 'No tool left unturned.'"

At present, Senden is working on the John Swett district's upcoming parcel tax, and handling a $30,000 community survey for the massive Mt. Diablo district. California school districts typically pay for those surveys, then hand off any resulting campaign to community volunteers.

The Alliance of Contra Costa Taxpayers is fiercely critical of those surveys, even though members of its Lafayette branch actually hired Senden to run a similar community poll 10 years ago, when the group backed a $13 million road and drain tax.

"The nature of these parcel tax campaigns (is) a district hires a consultant to do a poll, with a manufactured consensus," said Mike Arata, a former Ohio teacher and member of the taxpayer alliance. "(Senden) plays both sides of the street, objective pollster and campaign agent. It's a built-in conflict of interest."

Several Senden surveys resulted in parcel tax plans being dropped or deferred. He advised against placing Acalanes and Walnut Creek parcel taxes on the same ballot after a 1999 survey, for example. In another case, Senden uncovered community outrage over a superintendent who had been caught shoplifting. The lack of faith in that district's leadership had to be dealt with first, he said.

Arata also objected to district money paying for the surveys, saying it violates California's Education Code prohibition against using taxpayer dollars to support political measures.

But California Attorney General Bill Lockyer gave those survey payments a legal thumbs-up in an opinion issued April 7, which said that a community college's pre-campaign survey constituted essential feasibility research, not advocacy.

"In Minnesota schools, they have community outreach officers on staff. In California, they don't have anyone keeping in touch with the community," Senden said. "The polls are a reality check."

Jackie Burrell covers K-12 education. Reach her at 925-977-8568 or jburrell@cctimes.com.