4 for the School Board

The Los Angeles school district is running out of time. The nation’s second-largest district has many excellent teachers and numerous students who win national academic awards, but their achievements occur in spite of an inept system that doesn’t give them the proper materials, financial support or educational direction.

The public is losing patience with endless excuses for why two-thirds of third-graders fail to read at grade level. The problems extend through all grades. Parents are frustrated with the plodding pace of progress represented by last year’s gain of two percentile points in reading and math scores. At that rate, the majority of students will fail each year for the next 10 years.

This state of emergency requires energetic and focused school board members who can make things better for kids despite huge obstacles. The April 13 school board election is a golden opportunity for frustrated voters. It’s a chance to effect real change in the largely unresponsive Los Angeles Unified School District: Four of the seven members of the Board of Education are up for reelection. The Times endorses challengers Genethia Hayes in District 1, Caprice Young in District 3 and Mike Lansing in District 7 and incumbent David Tokofsky in District 5, with the expectation that three well-prepared and forceful newcomers, with guidance from the single incumbent on the ballot who actually recognizes that this district is in crisis, will work together to improve student performance.

Turning around a district that fails the majority of its students will require more than good intentions and the right words. It will require a strategic plan that bases priorities on what is best for instruction and achievement. It will often require saying no to the unions that represent teachers, principals and nearly every other district employee when those unions seek job protections that benefit members but damage education. When unions, for example, demand that a teacher’s classroom assignment be based on how many years that teacher has worked at the district, not on teaching expertise or achievement, students are hurt. The board must say no. When various pressure groups want a principal selected not on a record of academic achievement but on ethnic, racial or other group considerations of “self-esteem,” the board must say no. Student achievement is what produces true and lasting self-esteem and what sets a foundation for success in life. Focusing on that fundamental principle is the only way L.A. Unified can move forward. The other road leads us to--well, it leads us to where we are now.

Genethia Hayes in District 1

This renaissance will require a discipline rarely demonstrated by Barbara Boudreaux, 65, the District 1 incumbent, who represents South and Central Los Angeles. She’s contentious, not in any effective way that leads to solutions but in a merely argumentative way that leads to needless bickering about irrelevancies. With Boudreaux, you never know when policy discussions will be interspersed with her views on “shotgun weddings” or the regional accents of students from Wyoming’s Teton Mountains region. Can’t figure out the connection between these topics and your child’s education? Neither can we.

The challenger, Genethia Hayes, 53, the executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a former teacher, knows how to build bridges and coalitions, a skill in great demand in this school district. Thoughtful and analytical, Hayes is committed to governance that emphasizes setting policy and discourages micromanaging and meddling.

Caprice Young in District 3

The candidates in District 3, which covers Hollywood, Silver Lake, West Hollywood, mid-Wilshire and parts of North Hollywood, are quite similar on paper. Both are Yale graduates and parents of a young child. The similarities end there. Jeff Horton believes the district’s performance “has not been that disastrous.” Compared to what? LAUSD test performance ranks in the bottom one-third in the nation. His lack of alarm should alarm you.

Horton, 51, a former teacher at Crenshaw High School, says most of the right things. He supports the superintendent. He champions accountability. But on several crucial votes he has been on the wrong side. He voted yes on building the controversy-plagued Belmont complex and presided over the board as it spent an inordinate amount of time debating the deal to construct that high school--the nation’s most expensive, complete with retail stores and an affordable-housing component. He supported the last round of teacher pay raises after the union gave up nothing concrete in terms of accountability; even teachers with unsatisfactory evaluations will get the pay hikes. He has served two terms; good intentions aren’t enough anymore.

The challenger, Caprice Young, 33, comprehends the urgency and depth of the crisis. With a professional background in both public and private finance--she is currently an executive with IBM--she would also bring an understanding of big-budget oversight. She grew up as a product of good public schools in the San Fernando Valley and is justifiably impatient with the pace of change now.

David Tokofsky in District 5

In District 5, covering the eastern San Fernando Valley and Northeast Los Angeles, there is an incumbent who gets it. David Tokofsky, 38, recognizes the clear and present danger that the district is in. He is equally clear on the problems and priorities. A former coach of the national championship academic decathlon team of Marshall High School, Tokofsky always does his homework. His constant raising of questions, his constant insistence on logic and common sense and going public about his frustrations haven’t endeared him to other members of the board. Good.

On Belmont, Tokofsky asked all the right questions but was brushed off by senior district staffers who were determined to build the high school near downtown Los Angeles regardless of environmental uncertainties, cost and political consequences. During his first term, he also took the lead in raising questions about the district’s embarrassing textbook shortage. With new, focused members on the board, Tokofsky should be able to curb his impulses to “run” the district, leaving that to the superintendent, and would be a source of deep knowledge and leadership.

His challenger, Yolie Flores Aguilar, 36, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Education, says all the right things in very general terms: She wants more accountability and more parental involvement. But a specific action plan is lacking. Her political alliance with school board President Victoria Castro also is troubling. The board needs independent thinkers, not those who might wind up perpetuating the old way of doing things.

Mike Lansing in District 7

In District 7, encompassing Watts, Harbor and the South Bay, incumbent George Kiriyama, 67, has been largely silent. A retired adult school principal, he rarely initiates instructional proposals, nor does he seem deeply involved in many school board discussions. More me-too than go-to during his first term on the board, Kiriyama often simply reiterates his colleagues. He is another longtime LAUSD insider with strong allegiances within a school district that desperately needs fresh leadership; he is another incumbent who thinks that “we have turned it around the last two years.”

Mike Lansing, a former parochial school teacher who now runs the San Pedro Boys and Girls Club, knows better. Lansing, 42, doesn’t pretend to know all the answers, but he knows the right questions. He knows the proper role of a school board. He knows the superintendent should conduct the day-to- day operations and that the board’s job is to set clear and decisive policy. If elected, Lansing will be part of a new coalition of school board members concentrating on the basics: how to help more children learn to read competently and succeed at math.

April 13 is the date to mark to vote in person. Applications for absentee ballots are on the back page of the sample ballot mailed to registered voters. Absentee ballots also may be obtained by writing to the city clerk’s office, P. O. Box 54377, Los Angeles 90054. Requests must be received by April 6, a week prior to the primary election.

If you believe Los Angeles public school children deserve better than they’re getting, vote for Genethia Hayes in District 1, Caprice Young in District 3, David Tokofsky in District 5 and Mike Lansing in District 7.