In the Big School Play, the Board’s the Heavy

After three days of watching the Los Angeles school board at work, I came to the sad conclusion that these are limited people who are prisoners of their own animosities and political agendas.

Saturday and Sunday, public hearings were held for the three candidates for school superintendent. Monday, the seven board members wrestled with a major controversy over spending the proceeds of the $2.4-billion school bond measure approved by a surprisingly big margin in the April 8 election.

When I spend that much time at a group’s meetings, I can usually figure out what’s going on. A meeting is like a play. Fairly early, it’s possible to pick out the main characters and their motivations. Then the audience watches them move toward the inevitable climax.

In this play, it may not be a happy ending.

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We’ll start with the most recent event, the school bond money.

Seldom have winners blown election goodwill so fast.

The victory of Proposition BB was a landmark in the political history of a region that has had a miserly attitude toward public school spending ever since the Proposition 13 tax-cutting measure emerged from anti-tax precincts in the San Fernando Valley almost a quarter of a century ago.

An unusual combination of voters gave the measure more than the two-thirds it needed to pass. The strange bedfellows: Latinos, coming into political power, and San Fernando Valley white conservatives.

Latinos voted for it, the Times Poll showed, because education is their No. 1 concern. The conservatives were persuaded, Proposition BB strategists said, by advertisements showing rundown Valley schools without air conditioning--and by Mayor Richard Riordan’s support.

Riordan backed the measure only when the school board agreed to a powerful oversight committee to closely supervise the spending of Proposition BB money. Then, after the measure won, school officials balked at having the oversight committee supervise the most controversial project, an expensive new Belmont High School.

How could anyone be so stupid?

To start with, the board members really don’t like each other and, as the educators say, “act out” their feelings as if they were high schoolkids clueless about the world around them.

In addition, they have their own personal and political agendas. Among them is loyalty to the unions, the most powerful single force in school board elections. Board members are governed by a terrible fear of losing.

These factors prevented them from seeing the big picture, restoring the public school system so that all parents--rich, poor and middle class--will feel comfortable, even proud, sending their children to L.A. schools.

As a result, the bond funds threatened to be a source of endless controversy until Riordan stepped in. Through top advisor Steve Soboroff, the mayor sent word that Belmont was fine with him, with strict supervision by the oversight committee.

The mayor is not clueless. He can count the emerging Latino vote. He also knows the fury of Valley taxpayers. He figures it’s possible to meet the needs of everybody.

If you think the board is handling the school bond money badly, take a look at the superintendent selection process.

Closed-door discussions began Wednesday and no matter who wins, the choice will have been made from a group of what the National Football League would characterize as second- and third-round draft choices.

There’s a non-educator, William E.B. Siart, CEO of the former First Interstate Bank before it was swallowed by Wells Fargo. Siart has a forceful style and firm grasp of business jargon that may impress stock analysts. But if he’s such a great businessman, what happened to First Interstate?

Daniel Domenech, a Cuban-born, Spanish-speaking Long Island school superintendent, is the most telegenic of the three. But if he didn’t have so much charm--and such a smooth speaking style--he’d be just another education bureaucrat. Little in his suburban background, no matter how racially and economically diverse the students, seems to be adequate preparation for running this huge district, with its conflicting demands of urban and suburban parents and children.

Deputy Supt. Ruben Zacarias is the insider candidate. The veteran bureaucrat is the choice of many Latino political leaders and of board members who actually like the present system, in which they micro-manage school affairs as if they were the principals, or even the teachers.

Zacarias began to shed his bureaucratic image during the public hearings and verged on charismatic during the final session at Roosevelt High School. But his mandate as superintendent would be stronger if he had faced a more impressive field.

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Too bad the school board didn’t scour the country for top contenders for superintendent.

The board should have been more honest with the voters on Belmont High and the Proposition BB funds instead of frittering away post-election community goodwill.

I don’t care if board members Victoria Castro and David Tokofsky don’t like each other, or that Julie Korenstein hates board president Jeff Horton and vice versa. That’s no excuse for fighting like schoolchildren.

What these people need is a trip to the school psychiatrist so they can get along with their work.