COSTA MESA UNPLUGGED:

Adams Elementary School is the latest Newport-Mesa Unified School District campus to take a seat in the dunk booth.

TeWinkle Middle School could use the break. As the Costa Mesa school most often targeted by disgruntled parents, TeWinkle needs the time to come up for air and towel off.

But the persistent question — most recently pressed by the parent collective known as the Mesa Verde Education Committee — remains: Can the district improve under-performing schools in Costa Mesa?

The answer is: Yes, but not easily. And certainly not quickly. The social, cultural, economic and ethnic dynamics that drive the school district’s universe are simply too big and too complex to allow for fast fixes.

Nonetheless, it’s the universe we have. And changes to a universe are measured by generations, not months.

I’ve had several chats about public education in America with my dad, a district superintendent for nearly half his career in public education. He’s always reminded me that a school district is engineered to achieve educational uniformity through the equal application of resources. Under that model, a district or a school in a district serving a diverse population will always regress to the mean (read: top of the Bell Curve).

Why? Because the ethic of education in households as ethnically, culturally, socially and economically diverse as those in Costa Mesa is not uniformly present.

In some homes, education is paramount. In others, it’s not. A student’s performance most often reflects the value his or her parents place on education. Whatever the case, a schools measurable performance most often reflects the mean value of the education ethic of its community.

In my world — where a school district’s capability to achieve a high-level of uniform academic performance across all its campuses is limited — the parents’ principal responsibility is to set an educational course for their children that will ensure the best scholastic opportunities prescriptive to each child’s needs and interests.

That’s an ethic of education.

It’s not the job of parents to form committees and improve their “neighborhood” schools unless their children are in those schools. It’s their job to place their children in schools that meet the unique educational objectives of their kids.

That’s the path my household has taken with the four in our brood.

Each have or are receiving top-shelf educations in Newport-Mesa schools. Our sons are products of the excellent college-prep regimen at Orange Coast Middle College High School. One is now in the film school at Cal State Long Beach, the other at the Conservatory of Music at Chapman University.

We’ve guided our oldest daughter into a rigorous honors and AP course schedule at Estancia High School. She’s harvesting a top-flight education. Our youngest is settled in at Corona del Mar Middle School, where she takes Latin and other brain-stretching courses suited to her needs and interests.

I call it prescriptive school choice. Fortunately, the Newport-Mesa district has plenty of excellent campuses — in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach — where that choice can be exercised with great results.

The Newport-Mesa district has many fine campuses within its realm. Some are better than others. And the district does about as well as it can to fulfill its mandate under the law and with the resources it’s given.

But the ethic of education is a parent-to-child transaction. Absent that, criticism of the school district rings hollow.

BYRON DE ARAKAL is a former Costa Mesa Parks and Recreation Commissioner. Readers can reach him at [email protected].