Charter schools emerge as issue in board runoff

Deep into an important election that’s attracted little civic notice, Jon M. Lauritzen provoked unwanted attention in the run up to Tuesday’s Los Angeles school board runoff.

He first ignored legal advice and voted against authorizing a group of charter schools in South Los Angeles. Then two weeks later, he switched sides, acting as the deciding vote both times.

The fallout from the first round was immediate and persisting: Lauritzen’s opponent, prosecutor Tamar Galatzan, immediately defined herself as the pro-charter school candidate. The Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Daily News pummeled Lauritzen in editorials, which Galatzan republished in campaign mailers.

The one-term incumbent already was struggling: He finished second to Galatzan in the March primary that narrowed the field to two candidates in District 3, which stretches across the south and west San Fernando Valley.

This contest and the other school board runoff, in an area stretching from Watts to the Harbor area, have citywide ramifications: If Galatzan wins in the Valley and retired school district administrator Richard Vladovic prevails in District 7, then for the first time, board members allied with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will have a majority on the seven-member school board.

The bids by Galatzan and Vladovic are being funded largely through a campaign committee controlled by Villaraigosa. Lauritzen is getting the vast majority of his campaign money from the teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles. UTLA did not endorse either candidate in District 7, where Vladovic is opposed by Neal Kleiner, a retired principal.

The issue of charter schools gained more prominence last week when a majority of teachers at Locke High School in South Los Angeles bucked district management and their union to sign a petition setting in motion the conversion of their academically struggling school to a charter run by Green Dot Public Schools, the same group that was the subject of Lauritzen’s flip-flop.

The initial reaction of all runoff candidates to the Locke charter was measured -- all saw some potential for progress while also raising some concerns or wanting to learn more about it. Locke is in District 7.

But it’s in the Valley where charter schools have become a defining difference, though not the only one. There’s also Galatzan’s youthful energy versus Lauritzen’s long experience in education. Galatzan, 37, comes at certain issues like the upper-middle-class parent of young children that she is, whereas Lauritzen, 68, sees the world through the eyes of a teacher, which, for decades, he was.

The closest ally of the teachers union on the school board, Lauritzen exemplifies the union’s misgivings about charters, which are independently run, publicly funded campuses exempt from many regulations that govern regular schools, including complying with union contracts. In L.A. Unified, the majority of charters are nonunion. Green Dot charter schools are unionized but are not affiliated with UTLA.

Altogether, 103 charter schools -- more than in any other school district -- enroll about 42,000 L.A. Unified students, about 6% of the district’s total. And more charter schools are on the way regardless of who wins. Charter school advocates view Galatzan as someone who will work hard to assist these schools. They characterize Lauritzen as part of a board majority that treats charter schools with suspicion or like second-class citizens when it comes to providing facilities.

Lauritzen justified his initial “no” vote on Green Dot by saying he wanted to see how its schools near Jefferson High performed before approving schools near Locke High. The revised motion postpones their opening for a year, long enough for early results from the Jefferson area to come in, Lauritzen said.

At a Van Nuys campaign forum last week, Galatzan called charters “a cry for help” from “parents, teachers, administrators ... so fed up with the bureaucracy in the district that they say, ‘Let us break free.’ ”

“They are really one of the bright spots for parents who otherwise would either move out of L.A., use a fake address in order to enroll somewhere else or send their kids to private schools,” said Galatzan, the mother of two preschool boys. No parent on her street, she added, sends children to public schools.

Galatzan has called for the district to allow charter schools to operate at Highlander Road Elementary and a handful of other West Valley schools that have closed because of declining enrollment.

District officials say that it can cost millions to reopen a school and that limited funds to help charter schools can be more efficiently spent elsewhere.

In contrast to Galatzan’s full speed ahead, Lauritzen once unsuccessfully sought a timeout on more charter schools: “I called for a respite, a moratorium, a couple of years ago, because we had just approved our 100th charter and we hadn’t taken any time to evaluate what the charter schools had done up to that point.” On the other hand, he said, he’s never voted against one that has come up for reauthorization: “I’d rather stand in front of a freight train than try to stand in front of the charter movement,” Lauritzen said at the candidates forum.

For leaders of the teachers union, more charter schools mean fewer members and less influence over the future path of school improvement, let alone salaries and benefits. And like other critics of charter schools, they’re concerned that these alternative campuses can too easily attract the most desirable students and teachers, taking away state funding while leaving the tougher-to-educate behind.

Beyond charter schools, Lauritzen focuses on the district’s massive effort to build schools and its significant improvement in elementary school test scores. Galatzan, like her patron the mayor, focuses on the high dropout rate and asserts the necessity to bring to the school board a sense of urgency about improving schools.

On certain issues, Lauritzen isn’t always in step with his patron, the teachers union. He supported the return of full-day kindergarten ahead of the union leadership. And he enthusiastically backs anything that strengthens vocational education. When union leaders press, he’s their willing representative in a way that belies his genial manner and tentative, sometimes almost befuddled speaking style. Though an ongoing battle with brain cancer has sometimes sapped him, he doesn’t miss board meetings.

Lauritzen sees no conflict in taking cues on policy from UTLA, which he thinks of as seeing things from a teacher’s perspective -- because, he has said, what is good for teachers also is good for students.

Lauritzen is fully on board with key union priorities such as shrinking the bureaucracy, reducing the number of regional administrative offices, decentralizing the school system and moving away from strict adherence to the structured Open Court reading program, which some teachers find stifling. Galatzan has similar views on these matters.

“Jon seemed to move fastest when UTLA was pushing him to do something,” said fellow board member David Tokofsky, who is retiring from office in June and has not endorsed anyone in the race. “I think the onset of cancer has made him more sober about who his real maker is, and he’s approached all the controversial issues trying to balance the UTLA push with what matters, as he understands it, for kids.”

Lauritzen’s critics say that UTLA is, by definition, preoccupied with teacher salaries, health benefits and job security -- priorities that don’t always benefit students. Such critics want more authority for principals to replace ineffective teachers. These voices include former Mayor Richard Riordan and attorney David Fleming, chairman of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. They have unified behind the endorsed candidates of Villaraigosa, who once was an organizer for UTLA.

“The unions pretty much own the LAUSD today,” Fleming said. “The mayor has taken on an entrenched bureaucracy -- which he used to be a part of -- and he wants change.”

Villaraigosa avoids anti-union rhetoric; he said he wants to bring all parties together. Lauritzen, he said, is simply not enough of a “change agent.”

In District 7, Vladovic, 62, focuses on his long experience at all administrative levels, including service as an area superintendent in L.A. Unified and as superintendent in West Covina Unified. Kleiner, 60, a recently retired Los Angeles principal, emphasizes his independence from the mayor, while also pledging to work with him.

howard.blume@latimes.com

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On the ballot

Tuesday’s municipal election will include three runoffs for local offices.

Los Angeles Board of Education

* District 3: Incumbent Jon M. Lauritzen, 68, will face challenger Tamar Galatzan, 37, to represent the south and west San Fernando Valley.

* District 7: Richard Vladovic, 62, a retired superintendent, is opposed by retired Principal Neal Kleiner, 60, in the bid to replace incumbent Mike Lansing in this district, which stretches from Watts to the harbor area.

Also on the ballot:

* Los Angeles Community College District Seat No. 5: Incumbent Georgia L. Mercer is running against challenger Roy Burns.

* State Assembly District 39: Voters in this district, which includes the city of San Fernando and portions of the northeast San Fernando Valley, will vote on a separate ballot to replace Richard Alarcon, who left the seat after being elected to the Los Angeles City Council.

This specially scheduled primary will have one candidate on the Republican side and four Democrats vying for a spot in the general election in a heavily Democratic district.

To find your polling place online, go to www.lavote.net/locator/

Source: Howard Blume