Korenstein Seeks 5th Term in Race Against Riordan-Backed Challenger

The race for the Los Angeles Board of Education seat representing the San Fernando Valley is a contest between two candidates and their formidable champions.

Incumbent Julie Korenstein is counting on a tide of human support from the 43,000-member Los Angeles teachers union to sweep her into a fifth term on the school board.

Challenger Tom Riley is expected to outspend his opponent, possibly 2 to 1, primarily with money raised by Mayor Richard Riordan.

“The mayor has a million dollars, but we have a million feet,” Korenstein said at a recent United Teachers-Los Angeles rally.

The arm wrestling between the mayor and the teachers union is central in the 6th District, the only one of seven board districts entirely within the Valley. It includes the mid-Valley, from Sherman Oaks to Sylmar, and Sunland-Tujunga.

The election is set for April 10.

Korenstein, a former school volunteer and teacher first elected to the board in 1987, epitomizes the union’s political influence.

In her 1997 election, Korenstein received nearly 75% of her campaign contributions from UTLA, and this week, the union pledged $150,000 to her campaign. She frequently supports teachers’ causes in board meetings and routinely votes the union position.

Riley, a former Notre Dame football player and a Valley businessman, said he would not have taken on the campaign had it not been for Riordan’s backing.

“The mayor is the great equalizer, the only way you could win without UTLA,” he said.

Riley was recruited to run by Caprice Young, one of the three challengers Riordan supported in 1997 and the one the mayor confers with most frequently today.

Young and Riley met as fellows of the Coro Foundation, a nonprofit program to develop young leaders. Their families remain socially close.

Riordan is supporting three candidates in this school board election. Strategists for the mayor’s candidates, who currently have more than $1 million in hand for the campaign, have spent little of it so far, but said they will begin a barrage of mailings and television commercials possibly as soon as next week.

Although Riordan-financed advertising for two of the three candidates--including Riley--is expected to hammer on the theme of union influence, Riley has so far tread lightly on this issue.

Saying he is trying to run a positive campaign, Riley has characterized Korenstein as a nice person who hasn’t provided leadership.

“I think she does a good job of taking care of the small quality-of-life issues for the schools,” Riley said in an interview. “She hasn’t stepped up to the plate on the big issues like building schools, setting standards, social promotion.”

For example, he said, Korenstein was chairman of the board’s Facilities Committee for 10 years, a period during which few schools were built.

Korenstein, on the other hand, has already made the mayor an issue in her campaign literature.

“Mayor Richard Riordan spent over $2 million to elect four of the seven school board members two years ago,” her color brochure says. “Now he’s trying to elect all seven. . . . Do you believe the mayor should be able to handpick all seven board members--because of a disagreement over teacher salaries?”

Aside from their backers, the two candidates offer sharp personal contrasts.

A second-generation Angeleno, Korenstein, 57, became involved in the city’s schools as a volunteer in the classrooms of her three children, who all graduated from Los Angeles schools. She has a granddaughter attending a Valley neighborhood school.

In her 14 years on the board, Korenstein, a Tarzana resident, has been a steady advocate of phonics-based reading instruction and environmental issues, often as a minority voice.

She campaigned on a return to phonics in her first election and immediately began pushing for it.

“Some board members were not interested,” she said.

The board finally adopted a phonics-based program in 1999 for low-performing schools.

Korenstein dissented in the 4-3 vote approving the now-abandoned Belmont Learning Complex, objecting to the construction of a school on an oil field. The board later voted to abandon the project, but the decision could be reversed. (Riley is opposed to the project as well.)

Korenstein wrote the board’s policy prohibiting the use of pesticides at schools and prodded district officials to put escape latches on security grilles.

As a board member, she declined to hire a field representative, instead spending the money for a dropout prevention program.

Having served on the board more than twice as long as any member who will still be on the board in July, Korenstein said she feels driven to run again by a sense that her experience and historical knowledge of the district are needed.

Despite tough talk on school district labor relations, Riley, 35, is the son of a Teamsters official. He attended public schools in Pasadena and was bused as part of an integration program. He graduated from a Catholic high school.

He worked briefly as a union organizer and staff member for former Assemblyman Mike Roos. In 1993 he ran for City Council, failing to make the runoff in the race eventually won by Jackie Goldberg, now a Democratic Assemblywoman. He and his wife live in Van Nuys.

In 1994, Riley started a company that makes machines for playing bingo. The machines allow players to manage multiple cards.

In her campaign literature, Korenstein said Riley manufactures “gambling equipment for casinos.” He said he has sold the machines only to charity groups, including schools, for fund-raisers. Riley and his partners are developing a new computer-based speed bingo game, however, that they would sell to any gaming operation.

Korenstein has disparaged Riley for his business interests and lack of any track record in education.

“That should qualify him for being a school board member?” she asked. “What does he know about schools?”

Riley acknowledges his shallow knowledge of education.

“If you start talking about curriculum, there are 1,000 people in L.A. Unified that studied it more than I did,” he said.

He said the board needs his business perspective and willingness to make hard choices, particularly with respect to setting reasonable salaries, getting rid of superfluous programs and using eminent domain to take property for new schools.

“If I do this job right,” he said, “I will probably be the most hated guy in L.A. for two years until they see that what I was doing was the right thing.”