L.A. School Board Choices

Four of seven seats on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education are before voters in the March 4 primary. The Times endorses the incumbents in these races because of their modest success over four years in improving the schools for their 750,000 students and because their challengers are weak.

District 1: Genethia Hudley-Hayes

In her first term, Genethia Hudley-Hayes led the board’s clumsy ouster of former Supt. Ruben Zacarias and helped stimulate construction of new schools. Her current priorities include modernizing the district’s creaky fiscal accounting system and raising test scores among the weakest performers. Hudley-Hayes is one of four board members elected in 1999 with support from a coalition led by former Mayor Richard Riordan and billionaire Eli Broad, who back her reelection. Her opponent, Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte, is a teacher and administrator who offers few specifics for improvement.

District 3: Caprice Young

Currently the board president, Caprice Young pushed hard in her first term to launch the school-building effort. Like Hudley-Hayes, she views upgrading the district’s financial management as a priority. Riordan’s coalition is backing Young, as it did four years ago. In recent weeks, she announced her support for breaking up the district and said she would appoint a commission to study breakup options, a position that would resonate in her newly drawn district in the San Fernando Valley. Jon M. Lauritzen, her opponent, is a retired teacher who previously lost two Assembly races.

District 5: David Tokofsky

This is the race generating heat. Riordan and his pals decided last year to try to oust David Tokofsky, now bidding for a third term. Riordan, who tepidly endorsed Tokofsky in 1999, isn’t comfortable with him now for the very reason voters should be: Little gets by Tokofsky, including a $107-million school construction contract quietly awarded to a Riordan friend with no competitive bidding. Sure, Tokofsky can talk a blue streak and is often isolated on a board that runs on consensus. But he’s smart and focused on student needs. His challengers are Nellie Rios-Parra, a Lennox School District teacher and administrator with contributions from the Riordan-Broad coalition; Jose Sigala, an aide to Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh (D-Los Angeles); and Maria Lou Calanche, who teaches at East Los Angeles College. Each has some credentials, but their common insistence that they would better “represent” families in this Eastside district is a thinly disguised ethnic appeal.

District 7: Mike Lansing

As chairman of the board’s facilities committee, Mike Lansing justly claims some credit for keeping the ambitious school-building project on time and within budget. Still, he’s not been much of a presence on the board. His challenger is Gilbert Carrillo, a tax auditor for the state Board of Equalization. Carrillo says his background would help bring fiscal responsibility to the district. He’s earnest and concerned about miserable conditions at many schools, but, like some other candidates, he is short on specific proposals for improvement.