Charter school group is political force in L.A. Unified board election
Los Angeles mayors once played the role of kingmaker in school board elections.
Both Richard Riordan and Antonio Villaraigosa took on the teachers union, leading campaigns to raise money for favored candidates. When those candidates won, the mayors influenced district spending, the hiring of superintendents and the direction of reforms — often over union opposition.
In Tuesday's election, this role has shifted to a statewide charter school group, which is raising money, sending mailers and rallying parents in an effort to become a permanent political force. The push comes at a crucial time for charter schools, which have been growing at a rapid clip in Los Angeles Unified despite concerns from some — including union officials — that they are sapping vital resources from traditional public schools.
California Charter Schools Assn. Advocates, a political action committee, has put its muscle into a race it considers crucial. The charter group seeks to unseat one-term incumbent Bennett Kayser and elect charter school founder Ref Rodriguez to represent an area that encompasses Silver Lake and Eagle Rock as well as southeast L.A. County.
The teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, is pouring money into the race on behalf of Kayser.
Another candidate for District 5 is parent leader and education consultant Andrew Thomas, who frequently reaches for middle ground between his two opponents.
Through Wednesday's campaign filings, the charter group had spent $699,688 to support Rodriguez. UTLA had spent $384,109 for Kayser. Those totals far surpass donations directly to the candidates as well as the spending totals for the other contested board races.
Since September, the donors to the charter PAC include Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings ($1.5 million), former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg ($450,000), Jim Walton of the Wal-Mart founding family ($250,000) and local philanthropist Eli Broad ($155,000). All are longtime charter school backers with a broad interest in education.
"At least for this election, and in board District 5, where it's going to be the most competitive race, this looks like a proxy war between the California Charter Schools Assn. and United Teachers Los Angeles," said Dan Chang, who heads a different political action committee that supports the same candidates as the charter PAC.
Four seats are on the ballot for the seven-member school board. George McKenna, who recently took office in a special election, is unopposed. Two other incumbents, Tamar Galatzan and Richard Vladovic, are seeking to retain their seats in contested but lower-cost races. The union is silent in these races; the charter group endorses the incumbents.
The next Board of Education will choose a superintendent for the nation's second-largest district and face difficult decisions over how best to restore programs and staffing as funding recovers from the recent recession. L.A. Unified also is mired in contract talks with the teachers union.
Another challenge is how to deal with the growing number of charter schools, a main point of distinction between the candidates.
Charters are independently operated and exempt from some rules that govern traditional campuses. Most are nonunion.
According to the charter group, Kayser cast votes supportive of charter schools only 11% of the time. Kayser's vote was usually symbolic because the board majority regularly approved valid petitions for new charters, as required by state law.
But Kayser's reflexive opposition made him enemy No. 1 for charter advocates.
More than 100,000 students, or 15% of L.A. Unified's enrollment, attend charters, the most of any school system in the nation. State funding, at least $8,000 per student, goes to the charter school where a student enrolls, leaving fewer resources in L.A. Unified to pay for infrastructure, programs for the disabled, retiree Charter school group is political force in L.A. Unified board election - LA Times:
