That's a huge burden for a school district to shoulder. It can be argued that few, if any, superintendents in California have a more daunting challenge before them than Michael Hanson. After all, experts say, dropout rates are primarily a function of poverty, and few places in America have more concentrated poverty than Fresno.

Deborah Nankivell of the Fresno Business Council, a longtime Hanson supporter, says critics often lose sight of the magnitude of the social problems facing the school district.

"This is an impoverished community, and Fresno Unified is at the heart of that," she said. "I've found the superintendent to be a great community partner looking at ways to leverage with the city. He does a ton of stuff. He visits campuses. I've seen him at community meetings. He's involved in community events."

She said blaming Hanson for the dropout problem was "sort of like blaming the social worker when the baby died on their watch. All these forces converged to put this child at risk. And whoever was there last, somehow it's all their fault."

Community activists say they are not blaming the superintendent for the problem but for the way he goes about solving it. Rather than tap into their expertise and eagerness to help, he regards them as meddling and shuts them out of the process, they say. As a result, elected officials and business leaders, ever careful not to step on Hanson's turf, have shied away from tackling the dropout crisis.

It is this civic inaction that drives Guzman crazy as he sits in his office at the Chicano Youth Center and looks out proudly to the Mayan water fountain that he says has never been marred by graffiti from Hispanic crews that seem to tag everything.

"This city's burning from the inside out, and our leaders are comatose," he said. "You go to L.A. and the mayor is leading the charge on fixing the dropout problem. Here, the mayor and the City Council are afraid to step on the superintendent's toes."

If Guzman sounds angry, he is. He says his attempts in 2009 to persuade the school district and City Hall to support a dropout commission met with all sorts of disingenuous responses.

In a June 2009 letter, Hanson told Guzman he didn't have the money in his budget to create and support such a commission. Guzman wrote back, saying he wasn't looking for any money.

Three months later, records show, Hanson dispatched Miguel Arias, FUSD's head of constituent services, to City Hall to lobby against the proposal. During the public comments before the vote, then-city manager Andy Souza said it wouldn't be prudent to move forward in the face of the school district's opposition.

"Any action must be taken in conjunction with Fresno Unified," Souza said. "We can't be working independent of the major stakeholder in this issue."

Council Members Andreas Borgeas, Lee Brand, Larry Westerlund, Blong Xiong and Cynthia Sterling agreed. Only Perea and Council Member Mike Dages voted to support the idea.

Two years later, Perea, now a state Assembly member, still remembers his disappointment. "The City Council did a huge disservice to this community. Blew a great opportunity to work with a community interest group that could tackle one of the biggest issues facing our generation."

What especially galled Perea and Guzman was the school district's rationale for not supporting the commission. Arias told the City Council the school district was in the midst of planning a big dropout summit with the local United Way. Guzman's proposal, he said, would be a duplication of efforts.