The Four Rs of the Mayoral Race

The politics roiling the Los Angeles Unified School District are a simple matter of the Three Rs: Reform, Retribution and Reality.

There’s little disagreement that the nation’s second-largest school system is in need of reform. Asked in a recent Los Angeles Times Poll to grade their schools’ performance, roughly one-fifth of the respondents residing within the district gave them a D or F.

The hunger for change helped a slate of reform-minded candidates, backed by L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan, win control of the school board in this year’s municipal elections, ousting three incumbents. The new blood has also brought rookie mistakes. In its drive to impose accountability, the new majority’s heavy-handed orchestration of the appointment of Howard C. Miller, a former school-board president, as district CEO sparked a power struggle between the board and Supt. Ruben Zacarias. Any seasoned politician, faced with the need to justify a controversial decision, knows that how you get to that decision is as important as the outcome. That’s the argument many Latino activists and elected officials have made, and it’s a valid one, never mind the political hay that can be made from it.

Retribution is a basic political instinct; it has exacerbated LAUSD’s problems. Lame-duck board members sandbagged their successors with a last-minute extension of Zacarias’ contract. The new board reacted by marginalizing the superintendent. Then Zacarias got angry, making the road to accommodation more tortuous.

Reality has intensified LAUSD’s political and managerial woes. The district’s population has soared, despite the flight of the largely Anglo middle class from public schools. But staffing, funding and sluggish and botched construction projects have not kept pace with new students’ needs.

The economic and political future of the city will depend in part on educating the district’s predominantly Latino population. At the same time Latino student rolls are growing, the city’s Latino electorate is expanding and voting. That is why politicians from Sacramento to L.A. have a lot at stake in the current LAUSD turmoil.

Gov. Gray Davis has made education reform the benchmark by which Californians will judge his first term. If the state’s largest and most diverse district doesn’t perform well, Davis’ own record will be at risk come reelection time. Can the ever-cautious Davis avoid the briar patch of competing interest groups that is LAUSD?

Richard Polanco, the powerful Senate majority leader, is facing term limits and must leave the Legislature in 2002. By working to energize Latino support for Zacarias, Polanco has raised his visibility for a possible City Council run or even a stab at statewide office. But aggressively courting his ethnic constituency could jeopardize his ability to appeal to the state’s larger, predominantly Anglo electorate.

The speaker of the Assembly, Antonio R. Villaraigosa, is another soon-to-be termed-out Sacramento politician with a stake in the school district. Villaraigosa launched his bid for mayor of Los Angeles as LAUSD infighting escalated. He finds himself pitched between his Latino political base and the need to build a citywide coalition in the 2001 election. That means his views on L.A. schools will have to resonate with other Democratic constituencies and with the city’s more moderate and conservative voters. Many of these Angelenos are impatient with Zacarias and what they see as a lack of progress in turning the district around.

Villaraigosa’s early statements on the crisis reflect the delicate balancing act he must perform. Weighing in squarely in the middle, he suggested the board “hold [Zacarias] accountable, reaffirm support for him or replace him.”

Steven L. Soboroff, another mayoral candidate, enters the race as a major player in L.A. school politics. He serves as chair of the Proposition BB Oversight Committee, which manages the $2.4 billion LAUSD voters approved for school repair in 1997, and is a Miller booster and vocal critic of the district’s failures, particularly in school construction and repair. Soboroff is looking to replicate Riordan’s winning coalition of Republicans, Valley and Westside voters. But Republican Riordan was boosted to victory his first time out by a strong showing among Latinos, winning more than 40% of their vote. Soboroff may find that achievement hard to duplicate.

Soboroff’s candidacy has been endorsed by Riordan, who also backed Miller’s appointment; but the mayor has, so far, distanced himself from the school fray. It won’t help Soboroff, who has adopted Riordan’s pro-child rhetoric, if the mayor abandons the battlefield or emerges just to shoot the politically wounded.

City Atty. James R. Hahn and City Councilman Joel Wachs, both declared mayoral contenders, have been largely absent from the political radar screen on LAUSD. Hahn, with strong support among African American voters, may be taking a cue from the relative lack of vocal support by black leaders and parents for Zacarias against the board, which is led by Genethia Hayes, an African American.

For both men, steering clear of the school morass is a sensible political strategy, if they can maintain it. But they can’t, thanks to the fourth R in the LAUSD equation: Riordan.

The mayor’s successful campaign to reshape the board contributed to its current turmoil. Will Riordan put his mouth where his money is? Can he exert the leadership needed to resolve the debate he helped ignite?

Politically, he doesn’t have to: He is term-limited out of office in 2001. He need not fear voter retribution, if he’s ready to leave the political stage.

But by inserting himself into the reform process, Riordan has cast LAUSD as a major issue in the 2001 race to choose his successor. His actions also have made it impossible for any future mayor to argue, despite a lack of statutory authority over district affairs, that the problems the city’s schools face are “not my job.”

More specifically, the Belmont Learning Complex could snare some politicians. A $200-million school-construction project mired in management and environmental miscues, Belmont has become LAUSD’s Vietnam: an unwinnable war, emblematic of a district out of control. That is heavy political baggage for school and city leaders to lug around.

L.A. County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, up for reelection next year, is being attacked for not aggressively investigating the Belmont fiasco. Barry Groveman, the attorney for the district’s environmental safety team, is planning to run against Garcetti. Groveman was instrumental in uncovering the problems that now threaten Belmont’s completion.

Navigating the LAUSD minefield is a test for its leaders, educators and parents, and for the city of Los Angeles, its citizens and elected representatives. It’s a test without a set of easy answers, but it is a test that no one can afford to fail.