Passion for Public Life

If you were to compile a short list of the most passionate and influential Angelenos of the past 20 years, Helen Bernstein would have to be on it. And if she wasn’t, Bernstein would surely have found some unabashed and unforgettable method of pointing out your ignorance.

She died last Thursday as she had lived: in headlong pursuit of another goal, more mindful of her prospective audience than of her own safety. Bernstein, 52, a candidate for the proposed Los Angeles city charter reform commission, was struck down by an automobile as she crossed a street on her way to a candidates forum.

She cared earnestly about education, from her days as an LAUSD teacher through her tenure as teachers union president and lastly as education advisor to Mayor Richard Riordan.

Bernstein stood for higher academic standards and more emphasis on discipline and student testing. She saw the teachers as the key to higher standards and would stop at nothing to make that point: some years ago, she threatened to flood the nation with letters about how the quality of life in Los Angeles would suffer greatly if her teachers had to absorb too much of a pay cut.

She will be sorely missed in this city. Even some of her political opponents will feel a loss in knowing they will never cross swords with her again.