Politics Goes to School

Education looms large in the Los Angeles mayoral race and several open City Council races as candidates cater to public opinion demanding better schools. Of course, neither the mayor nor the council has any legal authority to implement policy in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which sprawls beyond city limits. That said, the political amperage being focused on public schools can only help efforts for reform.

Most contenders for mayor are running political ads that show them with students and teachers or talking to parents, in classrooms or elsewhere at schools. They offer various prescriptions, though City Atty. James K. Hahn is the most realistic, given the constraints of the city charter: He offers the city’s help to site new schools and finance after-school programs.

Urban mayors recognize the importance of good schools to the vitality of a city. Joel Wachs, a veteran councilman who is running for mayor, sums up the challenge: “You can’t have a first-rate city with a second-rate education system.”

In response to low test scores, high dropout rates and poorly prepared high school graduates, mayors in some other cities are taking over public school districts. Chicago, where Mayor Richard M. Daley has controlled the school board since 1995, is best-known among them. Last year, Washington Mayor Anthony Williams and Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown gained the authority to appoint several school board members, though not a majority.

None of the major contenders in the Los Angeles mayoral race advocate Chicago-style control of the LAUSD, though many candidates for mayor or City Council acknowledge that without swift improvement it will be hard to oppose the movement to break up the district. Most are certainly following the lead of Mayor Richard Riordan, who has used both his public clout and his personal fortune to influence change in the school district. With the help of wealthy friends, Riordan is remaking the school board by supporting candidates for every seat up for election Tuesday, a strategy that paid off during the 1999 school board races when four candidates he backed were elected. This has given Riordan a say in school policies as specific as how much teachers are paid and which form of math is studied.

The Belmont Learning Complex fiasco is also prominent in some council races, including the 1st District, where the costly, unfinished school is located. The leading contenders to succeed Mike Hernandez in that district, former Hernandez aide Ed Reyes and Lincoln Heights lawyer Robert Nakahiro, favor mitigating the environmental hazards that halted completion of the high school and opening the campus. Former Councilman Michael Woo and most other major contenders in the neighboring 13th Council District race also support cleaning up the site and opening the school.

The city’s after-school program, which was started by the late Mayor Tom Bradley, is something the mayor and council can directly affect, so candidates in all of the major races favor expansion. In the 3rd and 9th council district races, Judith Hirshberg and Jan Perry have been among the most specific in proposing ways to increase the number of after-school projects.

The next mayor of Los Angeles won’t be able to single-handedly fix the public schools. Nor will council members be able to address directly the many problems facing the Los Angeles Unified School District. They can, however, build coalitions, engage business leaders, help find property for new schools and keep the pressure on to improve public education. The more eyes the better, even if the city’s elected officials lack the power to directly change the system.