+ Long Beach Mayor Garcia Record As Self-Described Educator Compared To Dr. Jill Biden
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Long Beach Mayor Garcia Record As Self-Described Educator Compared To Dr. Jill Biden



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(November 9, 2020, 9:45 a.m.) -- Long Beach Mayor Garcia hasn't ruled out an appointment in an incoming Biden-Harris administration or a long-shot US Senate appointment. During the presidential campaign, he used his personal Twitter feed to stress his political fealty to the Biden campaign and cited his educational background in praising Biden's wife (now incoming First Lady) Jill as an educator. . Garcia describes himself on his official City of Long Beach online biography as an educator. Like Jill Biden, he has an Ed.D (educational doctorate) degree...but their career choices thereafter were very different.

Dr. Biden earned an Ed.D from the University of Delaware. She then taught English and reading in high schools for 13 years. She also taught adolescents with emotional disabilities at a psychiatric hospital. From 1993 to 2008, Jill Biden was an English and writing instructor at Delaware Technical & Community College. Since 2009, she has been a professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College

After receiving his Ed.D., Garcia led efforts to revitalize LB's Young Republicans. (LBREPORT.com archival coverage here.) He simultaneously worked as a City Hall aide to a Councilman (a Republican) preparing a 2006 run for Mayor, After the Councilman finished second, Long Beach City College gave Garcia position as a public information officer (not an educator's position.) During this period, LBCC also gave Garcia time off to help run a campaign for an LBCC-desired property-tax increase debt bond.

Garcia's City of LB biography is vague as to what classes he taught, on what level ("adjunct" or formal faculty) or for how long. A July 2014 USC Annenberg webpage says he taught journalism courses as an "adjunct faculty member" for three years, including "J209: Effective Writing for Strategic Public Relations." LBCC's Communications Studies current webpage lists him as part of its "adjunct faculty." CSULB's Online pages don't show what Communicatioms Stuies classes he taught, on what level or for how long.

What is clear is that after receiving his Ed.D., Garcia moved into a Council district where the then-incumbent Councilwoman, a Democrat, was widely expected to advance in 2008 to the state Assembly. Garcia flipped his voter registration to Democrat, sought and won the vacated seat in early 2009 and has been a partisan Democrat ever since.







After taking office as Mayor (a position lacking City Charter power to set City or Long Beach school policies), Garcia sought to associate himself with the "Long Beach College Promise," a politically popular program run by the separately governed Long Beach Unified School District, CSULB and LBCC that promises a college education to every LBUSD student. Garcia held varous photo ops seeking to link himself to the nationally praised program, but apart from recent City promises to hire a number of interns, he has no legally substantive role in the running LB's College Promise program.

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In 2016, Garcia voted at the Democrats' National convention to nominate Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders after enthusiastically introducing her at an LBCC rally on the eve of the CA primary (in which Sanders was seeking CA votes.) On the eve of the November 2016 presidential election, Garcia penned a social network dispatch (interpretted by some locally as seeking an appointment in a Hillary Clinton administration) saying he supported her not just as an alternative to Trump but because he genuinely liked her (LBBREPORT.com coverage here.)

Garcia's Ed.D, awarded by CSULB when he was a Long Beach Councimember, also has a political tone. LBREPORT.com separate coverage here.

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