Decision ’93 / A Look at the Elections in Los Angeles County : Los Angeles School Board : 4th DISTRICT : Q AND A

CONTENDERS

Douglas Michael Lasken, 47, of Woodland Hills is a second-grade teacher at Ramona Elementary School in Los Angeles. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Minnesota and a master’s degree in educational administration from National University of San Diego. He ran for Los Angeles Community College District Office No. 7 in 1986.

Mark David Slavkin, 31, of Los Angeles was elected to the Board of Education in 1989. He previously worked as a health expert for Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science from USC.

Judith R. Solkovits, 58, of Northridge is a business agent for a clerical employees union at Walt Disney Studios and Paramount Pictures. She holds a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Minnesota and has done graduate work in education at UCLA. This is her first try at public office.

Campus Safety

Q. How can we economically increase safety on our campuses?

Lasken: Promote laws to hold parents accountable for actions of minor children. Educate students in importance of human life so that the “code of silence” can be broken. Install metal detectors.

Slavkin: I have always supported automatic expulsion for students caught with a gun on campus. I support the use of metal detectors and the “800” tip line. Recently, the board approved my motion creating an Emergency Task Force on Youth Violence to bring all levels of government together to adopt a joint plan of action.

Solkovits: The entire issue in this campaign is how the Los Angeles Unified School District’s funds are budgeted. When you have almost $4 billion, there should be enough money to make each campus safe. The incumbent school board has not chosen to do so, and it is easy to see the mess that the members of the board have created through poor decision-making.

District Breakup

Q. Are you in favor of a breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District? If so, should there be a Valley-wide district or even smaller entities within the Valley?

Lasken: I am strongly in favor of breaking up LAUSD. The new districts should be of a size that enhances accountability to the community. For the Valley, this would most likely involve at least two districts.

Slavkin: I support the elimination of the central school board and the transfer of budgets and decision-making to the local schools, grouped by the 49 high school complexes for coordination and planning. I do not support the creation of more boards, unions and bureaucracies.

Solkovits: Not at this time. With all the work parents, community leaders, the teachers’ union and others have put into the LEARN Project, which would decentralize the district, and with the existence of a detailed plan by the teachers’ union done over many months to reorganize and decentralize the district, it would be foolhardy not to give these proposed reforms an opportunity to work, especially considering the time and cost of breaking up the district, not to mention the real chance that a breakup would merely create many small bureaucracies, not real educational reform.

Breakup Motivation

Q. Do you believe the breakup movement to be motivated by race?

Lasken: I do not believe the breakup movement has anything to do with race. The Valley is home to many diverse ethnic groups who would be better served by smaller, community-based school districts.

Slavkin: No. I believe the breakup movement is motivated largely by a frustration with top-down decision-making that fails to address the unique needs of local schools.

Solkovits: No. I think it is motivated by politics and misconceptions. Some politicians are cynically using the issue while others seem to be viewing a breakup as a panacea to solve all the problems schools face. It’s not a panacea.

LEARN Proposals

Q. Do you support the LEARN proposals to decentralize decision - making by the school site?

Lasken: I support many aspects of LEARN, but I believe LEARN is being overemphasized as a panacea and alternative to breakup. Suggestion: Allocate some of the $3 million in LEARN seed money to buy metal detectors now.

Slavkin: Yes. I strongly support LEARN and was the first board member to publicly endorse the LEARN effort.

Solkovits: Yes. The LEARN proposal offers the LAUSD an opportunity to begin the process of restructuring--a process that should have begun years ago. But some advocate the eventual elimination of the school board--something I view as incredibly dangerous. It’s important to have an elected school board that is directly responsible to the voters of the LAUSD.

Pressing Issues

Q. What is currently the most important issue in Los Angeles public education?

Lasken: Low teacher morale is the No. 1 problem in Los Angeles public education. I fault Mark Slavkin and some other board members for losing sight of the paramount role teachers play in achieving our educational goals.

Slavkin: The need to restructure the entire system and rebuild public support and confidence.

Solkovits: Certainly restoring the public’s faith in schools is important. But especially important is the need to provide a mechanism to ensure that the almost $4 billion the LAUSD receives is being used to the best advantage. To coin a phrase, it’s about priorities--the students and teachers of the LAUSD should be able to work in a safe and technologically up-to-date environment.

Valley Issues

Q. Besides air conditioning and year-round schools, are there such things as Valley school issues that are different from the problems affecting all Los Angeles schools?

Lasken: Real estate values in the West Valley have been severely compromised by LAUSD’s hostility to local concerns. Any Valley realtor knows a home in LAUSD is harder to sell than a home in any district west of here.

Slavkin: Every school is unique and we must avoid board generalizations. Within the Valley, for example, there are differences between overcrowded schools operating on a multitrack schedule and those West Valley schools that are receiving students on the bus.

Solkovits: One of the great misnomers about “Valley Schools” are that they are different from schools in the “City.” For example, the 4th District of the LAUSD stretches from the upper northwest San Fernando Valley to an area south of the Venice area. If one spends time visiting these schools and communities--as I have--one finds more commonalities than differences. All parents want schools that are safe, and all parents want their children to have the best books and supplies that are available.

Personal Priorities

Q. What would your highest priorities be as a board member?

Lasken: Two priorities: (1) Stop the violence in the schools now by implementing the proposals of the 1990 task force on violence (ignored by the board). (2) Work with teachers to heal the wounds caused by the board’s self-serving, hostile approach to labor relations.

Slavkin: My highest priority is to put real control at the local school level and to fight for additional school funding.

Solkovits: (1) Community and parent involvement to assist in seeking adequate funding for schools, and for developing solutions to problems such as campus violence. (2) Holding Board of Education meetings within LAUSD’s seven districts, not just downtown, to provide greater community participation and board accountability to the public. (3) To break the grip of the bureaucracy on the education of Los Angeles’ children.

Union Influence

Q. Do you believe the teachers’ union, or any other employee group, exerts too much influence in the district?

Lasken: Any time a bargaining unit accepts a 10% pay cut, its union does not exert too much influence.

Slavkin: I believe too much influence is exercised centrally by the unions and the board. All of us must be willing to stop the political battles downtown and truly empower our local schools.

Solkovits: No. I believe that UTLA was and is the only organized group that consistently seeks to inform the community about the problems confronting the schools of Los Angeles, and also is one of the few voices in the city putting forth considerable effort to improve education and develop solutions to the problems of the district. For example, last May, UTLA presented a detailed plan for reorganizing the LAUSD to bring power to the local school site, away from the district’s downtown and regional bureaucrats. The plan, developed over many months of work by the union, was pooh-poohed by the bureaucracy, rejected out of hand by the school board and ignored by the press.

Teacher Contract

Q. Do you support the teacher contract offer crafted by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown?

Lasken: I appreciate Brown’s help in averting a strike, but the agreement leaves teachers in a demoralized and financially precarious state. We need a board with the ability to handle its own labor negotiations.

Slavkin: Yes, I voted for the proposal crafted by Willie Brown as a necessary compromise needed to avoid a devastating strike.

Solkovits: Yes, as a stopgap measure to prevent a teachers’ strike. However, it is only that. Asking any one group of employees to accept such an enormous pay cut while they are working under difficult (at best) conditions is really asking for service above and beyond the call of duty.

Accessible Birth Control

Q. Do you support the availability of condoms and other contraceptives on high school campuses?

Lasken: I support availability of contraceptives to high school students as part of the fight against AIDS and unwanted pregnancy, with parental permission required.

Slavkin: Yes.

Solkovits: Yes. With society confronting an epidemic of HIV/AIDS, as well as the dramatic rise in teen pregnancies, denying any means of prevention is detrimental to our children and to society as a whole. It is important to teach kids to “just say no,” but words are often not enough to keep kids safe.

Redistricting Plan

Q. Do you agree with the redistricting plan passed last summer by the Los Angeles City Council?

Lasken: The newly drawn District 4 is a monstrosity of disenfranchisement. It negates all sense of community on both sides of Mulholland. I oppose it; Mark Slavkin bemoans it, after having voted for it.

Slavkin: I originally supported a proposal by the Westside Coalition that preserved two Valley board seats and a Westside seat. When it became clear that there were not the votes needed to approve that map on the council, I supported the plan that was adopted.

Solkovits: No. While I look forward to representing a district that is uniquely diverse in terms of ethnicity, economics and even regional differences, I feel that this redistricting plan is just another example of how for many politicians it is OK to play games with the education of Los Angeles’ children.

Bilingual Education

Q. Do you support bilingual education?

Lasken: My experience teaching for nine years in a bilingual classroom is that Hispanic children have no trouble learning English. Forcing them to study Spanish hinders their progress and wastes money.

Slavkin: I support bilingual education, but believe local schools should have the flexibility to design teaching strategies that work for their specific students.

Solkovits: As a means to assist all students in becoming proficient at reading, writing and speaking English and as a means to assist all students to learn, yes. Bilingual education is one of many tools necessary to provide a quality education to every single student in the LAUSD.

District Management

Q. Do you believe the school district to be mismanaged?

Lasken: The management of the district is completely disconnected from the classroom. I believe it is time for a teacher to be a board member.

Slavkin: Regardless of management techniques, this system cannot be effectively run from downtown. The current management audit is the result of my motion. However, in the end, the central system should have to compete to earn the business of our local schools.

Solkovits: Having taught elementary school for 16 years in the LAUSD, and having negotiated with the LAUSD for close to 10 years, and having had the opportunity for the last six years to negotiate contracts for employees in private industry, there is no doubt in my mind that the LAUSD is horribly mismanaged. One of my top priorities as a school board member will be to make the tough decisions, and fully inform the public in a manner that is understandable exactly how the district spends its money.

School Attendance

Q. Do your children attend public or private schools?

Lasken: My children attend public school in LAUSD: my daughter attends Taft High School, having graduated from Parkman Middle School; my son attends Serrania Elementary School.

Slavkin: My son attends kindergarten at Canfield Elementary School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. My daughter is 2 1/2 and will attend public school when she is ready.

Solkovits: All three of my children attended and completed their education in the LAUSD, at Darby Avenue Elementary School, Nobel Junior High School and Granada Hills High School. My husband teaches in the LAUSD, as does my eldest son.

School Bonds

Q. Do you support efforts to make school bond measures passable by a simple majority?

Lasken: I support measures to make school bonds passable by a simple majority. The future of our city and state depend on saving our schools.

Slavkin: Yes.

Solkovits: Yes.

Budget Cuts

Q. Do you support the continuation of after-school sports in the face of budget cuts that hurt the classroom?

Lasken: Many sports pay for themselves. They should be encouraged and financially supported where possible, through school funds when available, booster clubs, etc. After-school sports provide an alternative to lethargy and gang activity.

Slavkin: I propose eliminating district funding for high school sports and raising private and corporate money to fund these programs.

Solkovits: The community--parents, businesses, civic groups, professional sports franchises--are all stake-holders in the education of students. After-school programs of all kinds are important, and should be funded through community support. In San Francisco, for example, the Giants baseball team adds a per ticket charge to support after-school athletics in that city. When given the choice between after-school programs and the classroom, my priority is the classroom first, but if the incumbent school board had shown any leadership, I do not feel that we would have to make this choice.

Transfer Policy

Q. Do you agree with the “opportunity transfer” policy that allows students with discipline problems to switch campuses?

Lasken: I support giving the receiving schools of opportunity transfers the right to review the student’s records and the right to refuse admission based on those records.

Slavkin: No. I think transfers should be used only as a last resort and schools should do more to provide early intervention and support for students demonstrating problems.

Solkovits: The problem with this obviously well-intentioned program is that it has become more of an “educational Russian Roulette.” It needs to be carefully studied, and hard questions have to be asked. Then the program must be revamped, with the full participation of parents, students, teachers, other school personnel and the community.