Stridency of the Past Absent in Three L.A. School Board Races

Three seats on the Los Angeles Board of Education are up for grabs this year, but the campaigns seem to be missing the strident rhetoric, the partisan fervor and even the candidate interest of years past.

Two board members--Roberta Weintraub in the east San Fernando Valley and Alan Gershman on the Westside--each face only one, relatively unknown challenger.

Last month, West Valley board member Tom Bartman, former Bustop attorney, announced that he is stepping down, and seven candidates are vying to replace him.

But even among them, the once single-minded focus on compulsory busing has given way to a more general concern with improving the quality of education in the Los Angeles public schools.

“There are three concerns I hear parents talking about,” said Betty Blake, a PTA activist seeking Bartman’s seat. “They want good teachers. They want a safe school environment. And they want a school district that makes sure the needs of each child are met.”

The one emotional issue in the West Valley race is the closing of schools; 19 schools in the area west of the San Diego Freeway have been shut down in the last four years.

Three candidates--former Rand Corp. social scientist David Armor, former teacher Carie Vacar and businessman Claude Parrish--are highlighting their opposition to school closings in their campaigns to succeed Bartman.

“If you look at the demographic projections, you can see that the schools they want to close now may have to be reopened in a few years,” said Armor, who testified in court against the mandatory busing program in Los Angeles and who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1982 against Rep. Anthony Beilenson (D-Los Angeles).

Vacar, like Armor, has formed a grass-roots parent group to fight school closings. She also advocates a separate school district for the San Fernando Valley.

Parrish, who also ran and lost in the 1982 race against Beilenson, said former school board conservative Richard Ferraro persuaded him to run this year.

“The more he (Ferraro) talked to me, the more I realized how gratifying it would be to be on the school board,” Parrish said. “To me, one of seven would make it easier to make a difference.” Parrish said he could bring a “a little bit of the private sector touch” to managing the nation’s second-largest school district.

Armor, Vacar and Parrish are running on a generally conservative platform, and Blake, who has served on a variety of school district and statewide education committees, emphasizes her moderate stance.

The West Valley race has also drawn three lesser-known candidates who could help cause a runoff in June. They are Robert Worth, an adult education specialist who describes himself as “a registered Democrat but moderately conservative”; Elizabeth Ginsburg, a history and government teacher at Chatsworth High School, and Carolyn Brent, a retired teacher who worked 27 years in Los Angeles city schools.

If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote April 9, the two top finishers will run against each other on June 4.

The United Teachers of Los Angeles, which has traditionally worked hard to elect its friends to the board, said it probably will stay on the sidelines this year.

“We see Gershman winning easily on the Westside, Weintraub winning easily in the East Valley and a contest between Armor and Blake in the West Valley,” said Wayne Johnson, union president, adding that he is not necessarily enthusiastic about that result.

“We have endorsed people and worked hard for them in the past, and it hasn’t paid off,” he said. “They promise us the moon during the campaign, but they don’t deliver, and the teachers are just fed up with all that.”

The teachers’ union is particularly irked by the four board members, including Gershman, who publicly promised to work for a required union fee for all teachers, then backed away from that stance during the contract talks.

The union has never supported Weintraub, but Johnson regards her as “virtually unbeatable. She has too much name recognition.”

For her part, Weintraub views that “name recognition” as her most serious adversary.

“I’m really running against myself, or at least my former image, this time,” Weintraub said. During the mandatory busing era in the late 1970s, she was one of the most fervent, outspoken opponents, paving the way for her election to the board in 1979.

In recent years, however, Weintraub, 49, has worked on a variety of issues ranging from getting more women promoted as administrators to combating drugs and weapons on campus. As the host of a public affairs program, “School Beat” on KHJ-TV, and as a frequent guest on other radio and TV shows, Weintraub has been one of the most visible education officials in the Los Angeles area.

Weintraub’s opponent in the April primary, Mary Louise Longoria, has been working quietly in the East Valley minority neighborhoods spreading the word of her candidacy and establishing a grass-roots campaign.

“I have talked to parents, school administrators and teachers from Sunland to Studio City, and most have alluded to the fact that they would like leadership on the board that reflects the community better,” said Longoria, 48, a consultant for the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission. She added that the conservative, anti-busing mood that elected Weintraub no longer reflects the feelings of parents and voters in the district.

In contrast to Weintraub, Gershman has been a low-key member of the school board, rarely taking a strong stand on controversial issues, but often holding the swing vote.

“I think I’m effective in a different way” than Weintraub, said Gershman, 44, who began his career as a teacher at Roosevelt High School. “I’m accessible. I’m out in the schools, but I’m just not oriented to controversy,” he said.

Several Westside activists, some affiliated with the teachers’ unions and others who were parents seeking help for their local schools, said in recent years that they were disappointed by Gershman’s performance. In addition to not siding with the teachers’ union on the union fee issue, he cast a key vote against a study of the “comparable worth” pay principle in the school district.

His only opponent on the ballot is John Honigsfeld, a 42-year-old computer programmer who said he is affiliated with the Peace and Freedom Party. A former math teacher, Honigsfeld said he has “some ideas that are considerably different from the incumbents,” such as “more decentralized control of the schools.”

Last year, Honigsfeld said, he campaigned for Jackie Goldberg. He said he hopes that she will help with his campaign.

“I saw her recently, and she wished me good luck, but I don’t know whether that will translate into any active support,” he said.