Orange County Republican Long Pham has been running for office for a long time. And this Tuesday he finally won! Pham took out an arrogant incumbent on the Orange County Board of Education, Felix Rocha.
Now, thanks to our newest blogger, El Luchador, you can find out how Pham feels about winning at last by viewing the exclusive video above. We will also be posting a longer story about Pham by El Luchador.
Here is an autobiographical excerpt from Pham’s website (note that Pham’s website URL still mentions his last Assembly campaign, against the despicable Assemblyman Van Tran):
As an immigrant who spoke no English when I came here in 1975, I owe America for giving me the opportunity to obtain an education to become a successful engineer, and to be elected Vice-President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). I believe everyone of our students should have the same opportunity or better, and will work hard to make it happen.
I will bring my industry experience, my devotion to math and science education, and my Doctorate in Engineering Management to serve as your representative on the OCBE. Together we can realign the curriculum, providing the opportunities for our OCS students to develop the job skills needed in the twenty-first century workforce.
Congratulations to Pham, Orange County’s newest political star in the making! If you would like to contact Pham you may email him here.
Long, Mary and the entire Pham family…..
Congratulations….it’s been a long time coming!
I am happy to see another Vietnamese elected to office. I hope that he will use his analytical skills to question the actions of the Superintendent and Administration for it is by challenging the bureaucracy that the people are served best.
He is correct that this is going to be a challenging period for public education. As our funding falls to the lowest in the country and our challenges in overcoming economic and cultural discrepancies among our students become a larger percentage of our student population the solutions will not be found in business as usual.
Unfortunately this comes after a long slow decline in expenditures for education combined with an increasingly more expensive population to educate. The number of students requiring individual education plans, economic and language assistance programs have increased to nearly half of the students statewide.
These students also exhibit an achievement gap that needs to be addressed but is ignored by things like No Child Left Behind and much of the inadequate funding available for such groups. Unfortunately there seems to be no political will to increase funding for education through increased taxes even though well educated students. regardless of economic background, is an investment the majority of voters and businesses repeatedly state that they are willing to make.
The public education business is already operating at its leanest ever. There are few areas where cuts can be made without increasing class size and cutting programs. Every professional working in the education business has a specific and often legally mandated role in the education of our children. There is no fat to cut.
Hopefully, Long Pham is up to the challenge.
Great. Another guy who just wants to be an elected official — any kind of elected official.
The good news is that for the last 14 years he has been contributing to the system. For sure,
many didn’t want to listen. Long’s issues were
real and he fought like heck. The only reason
they have allowed him to win this time…is that
the system is ready to collapse…..and no one wants their name attached to bad times…except crazies that can contribute and save those worthless bureaucrats chops – when we should just give them their pink slips!
Obviously English is not his second language. He can’t even put a sentence together. I’m curious to where he got his PhD — University of Redlands? He talks a big game, saying all the right “buzz words.” He’s not interested in our education system; he’s only interested in making a name for himself. BOE is only a stepping stone to move on to bigger and better things. Unfortunately, he won’t get far. I’ve seen him in action, and I’m not impressed. Don’t waste your money on him. Long Pham, you should take your job seriously. Think about the students first.
This is a thread from June 2008. Predicting that he was using BOE as a stepping-stone isn’t a very dangerous bet right now.
You are having fun getting your local-politics education on this blog, aren’t you? You never know what’s gonna light up from some off-the-wall commenter.