Boudreaux, Hayes Offer Voters a Clear Choice

As they stump for the right to lead the poorest-performing campuses in the city, Los Angeles Board of Education incumbent Barbara Boudreaux and challenger Genethia Hayes are offering voters a clear picture of what they have in mind for students in the 1st District south of downtown.

Boudreaux would stick with existing programs that are showing signs of success: Test scores are inching upward, dropout rates are going down. Hayes, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Los Angeles branch, would launch reforms and audits to improve student achievement and eliminate fraud and waste.

Given that Boudreaux, 65, and Hayes, 54, both have strong ties in the district running from the blue-collar neighborhoods of South-Central Los Angeles to the middle-class communities of Baldwin Hills and Crenshaw, political analysts are predicting a close election June 8.

This much is certain: With three reform candidates elected to the seven-member panel in April, the winner will be the swing vote on the board as it enters the next century--either for existing policies or for sweeping changes.

Also at stake is Mayor Richard Riordan’s effort to shake up the board. He has raised nearly $2 million in his attempt to elect a new majority of four reformers, including Hayes.

Political commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson said: “This is an extremely important election involving candidates with very different personal styles and remedies for schools whose performance has been disgraceful.

“With Boudreaux, who casts herself as the representative of black students and staff, we have to ask why performance levels have dropped to rock bottom over the eight years she’s been in office,” he said.

“With Hayes, who pushes an all-for-every-student approach to education,” he added, “we have to say, ‘Fine. But what about black youngsters with special needs? What about their poorest of the poor test scores?’ ”

Despite the election’s long-term impact, experts predict a paltry turnout of about 20% of registered voters.

In the final weeks of the campaign, Boudreaux’s zingers--and Hayes’ responses--have at times overshadowed public discourse about other pressing issues, such as the fact that the four high schools in the 1st District produce the lowest number of college-bound students in the city.

Boudreaux has tried everything to goad Hayes off her perch as the front-runner in terms of fund-raising--she has raised twice as much money as Boudreaux--and of votes collected in the primary. Boudreaux has been telling anyone who will listen that Hayes and her allies, including Riordan, are out to “undermine my campaign because they want to take over the school district and its $6.7-billion budget.”

Last week, she tossed a political bombshell by alleging that Hayes and Riordan were somehow linked to an act of vandalism at her home and an assault on her 17-year-old granddaughter.

“They’ll stoop to any type of ruthlessness to have their way,” Boudreaux said in an interview. “Even a syndicate Mafia won’t do that.”

Hayes Lays Out an Agenda

In an interview, Hayes, who has made a career of conflict resolution, took a deep breath and flatly denied Boudreaux’s allegations that she hired a hit man to beat up the incumbent’s granddaughter. Then she blamed Boudreaux for the plummeting test scores of students.

“Of course she’s responsible,” Hayes said. “Over the past eight years these schools have gone so far down a slippery slope that they have become less and less attractive to parents. Those who can have pulled their kids out.

“We need people who understand how to set policy that leads to real improvement,” she added. “We need an audit of the district budget so that we know where every dollar is going. We need a review of central staff so that we know [that] everyone’s job benefits youngsters. And we need a board member with the skills to pull these schools up to at least the level of other schools.”

Hayes said many schools south of downtown are in such bad shape that they may need additional resources to rectify the academic problems of their students. “Not because poverty is a disease that makes children incapable of learning,” she said, “but because they have been without critical resources for so long.”

The volume of contributions shows that the candidates are setting the stage for what promises to be the most expensive campaign ever for the 1st District seat, which pays $24,000 a year.

During the period between March 28 and May 22, Hayes raised $319,006. The largest donors were Riordan’s Coalition for Kids Committee, which gave her $116,000, and the California Teachers Assn./Assn. for Better Citizenship, which contributed $7,500.

According to the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, the mayor’s committee raised an additional $176,547 for Hayes’ campaign coffers between May 23 and May 28.

Parke Skelton, Hayes’ campaign manager, said most of those contributions would be used to wage an election campaign similar to the primary effort, which relied heavily on targeted mailers, telephone banks and radio ads aimed at the district’s highest-propensity voters--elderly African American women.

On Hayes’ side is the formidable 40,000-member United Teachers-Los Angeles, which has been supplying volunteers for door-to-door campaigning and telephone banks. Other key supporters include Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) and the Rev. William Epps of the Second Baptist Church.

A new twist in Hayes’ campaign strategy is the effort by union activist Jose Govea to reach Spanish speakers. About 9% of the 1st District’s registered voters are Latino.

“This is a dogfight, and it’s going to be won by fractions--any constituency you can bring can make a difference,” said Govea, who hopes to contact 500 Latino voters over the next several days. “I’m telling people that Genethia is fluent in Spanish and actively campaigned against the anti-bilingual education law, Proposition 227.”

Boudreaux Lines Up Endorsements

Boudreaux’s reelection campaign took in $143,406 during the reporting period that ended May 22. She received $19,500 from the Rod Wright for Assembly committee and $10,000 from the Associated Administrators-Los Angeles.

“We can’t match Genethia’s money,” Boudreaux conceded. “And our mailers aren’t the foo-foo, expensive, full-color kind she has. Their side is even trying to draw off people’s thinking power by hitting people with five mailers at a time.

“But I’ve got my dedicated foot soldiers,” Boudreaux said. “And people are beginning to understand this race is not about me and Genethia. It’s about a takeover of the district by the mayor and his friends who want to use the [district] budget to fill their own pockets--and he’s picked a black female to help them do it.”

Boudreaux has virtually cornered the market on endorsements from African American elected officials in Los Angeles and across the state. Influential African Americans who have donated money, personnel and support in recent weeks are Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.

“There’s been a tremendous effort by these leaders to get the vote out for Barbara,” said political analyst Rick Taylor.

“There is a tradition in the African American community that incumbents stay incumbents for as long as they want,” he said. “Now, Hayes has raised a phenomenal amount of money, which presents the prospect of an African American incumbent being knocked off.”

Equally offensive to many African Americans in the 1st District, Boudreaux said, is the fact that many of Hayes’ key supporters are “downtown corporate types trying to tell us what to do.”

Community activist Celes King III, head of the Congress of Racial Equality, is among those rankled that Hayes has received huge infusions of cash from the mayor.

“I know and like both candidates,” said King, who is supporting Boudreaux. “But I have problems with outsiders trying to take away the initiating portions of the election process in this community.”

But not even King, who knows South-Central politics as well as anyone, would try to predict who will win. After all, both candidates have deep roots in the communities south of downtown.

Boudreaux was born in Mississippi and attended a one-room schoolhouse. In 1945, her family moved to Los Angeles so that she could obtain a decent education. She later worked as a teacher, vice principal and principal in Los Angeles public schools.

Hayes taught for five years in Los Angeles Unified’s child development division and was principal of Holy Nativity Episcopal Day School for another five years. She joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1985. Hayes has taught parenting classes and was a consultant for the state Department of Education.

“It’s going to be very close,” King said. “When people look at Barbara, they see a woman who has worked in the education field for a third of a century out here. Genethia is a fresh face, and a woman who comes out of a civil rights organization.

“That’s a tough choice,” he said. “And it’s why this is the most hard- fought political battle in the entire city right now.”