L.A. Now Live: Villaraigosa’s impact on Los Angeles Unified

As Antonio Villaraigosa’s term as mayor comes to an end, no other issue has stoked his personal passion as much as public education. And no other Los Angeles mayor has had as deep an impact on city schools as Villaraigosa.

Join us at 9 a.m. as we talk with Times reporter Howard Blume about the changes the mayor has brought to the Los Angeles Unified School District.

When Villaraigosa’s bid to gain formal control of L.A. Unified failed, he founded a nonprofit organization to take on the city’s worst performing campuses, and raised millions of dollars for them.

Unlike previous mayors, he has promoted a particular brand of school reform that favors stronger accountability for academic improvement, including teacher evaluations tied to test scores, and more choice for parents through increased access to charter schools and other alternatives.

To push those policies, he has been instrumental in supporting superintendents and school board candidates who embrace them.

And the onetime teachers union organizer has taken on his former allies by initiating a legal challenge to seniority-based layoffs and advocating a higher bar for tenure.

He blasted United Teachers Los Angeles as “the one, unwavering roadblock” to improving public education in Los Angeles and said his commitment to children trumped his allegiance to teachers and their union. “Every time I go to these schools, I look in their eyes and I see me,” he said in a recent interview. “I don’t want to let these kids down and that’s why I do this.”