A diagram of the East Valley clan relationships that shape City Council and LAUSD politics

As you may have read in last week’s LA Weekly about School Board member Nury Martinez’s bid for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council, there are surprisingly few women left on the Council thanks in large part to a rivalry between two male-dominated East San Fernando Valley political clans.

The rivalry between these two Latino clans doesn’t just affect the City Council, however.  It also greatly influenced Tuesday’s District 6 runoff between Antonio Sanchez and Monica Ratliff.

A look at the East Valley political factions may provide some insight about how we ended up with the Sanchez-Ratliff runoff rather than any of the other configurations that initially appeared likely — and why teachers union UTLA refrained from picking a single candidate to support in the District 6 race.  They simply didn’t want to get involved in a turf war between the Padillas and the Alarcons.

Of the candidates who initially declared their intention to run, the three heavyweights appeared to be Ernie Cardenas, Iris Zuniga and Antonio Sanchez.

But Cardenas dropped out; and then so did Zuniga, leaving Sanchez and Ratliff, a virtual unkown.

Why Cardenas and Zuniga dropped out has never been fully explained, at least not in a totally satisfying way.

Solid lines denote connections; broken lines denote former connections that have since been broken

The area, as any political consultant will tell you, is dominated by two clans, the Alarcons and the Padillas:

Alarcon Clan

The first is headed by outgoing City Councilman Richard Alarcon, and includes ex-Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (now a lobbyist and consultant for StudentsFirst), Antonio Sanchez, State Senator Kevin Deleon, community college trustees Steve Veres and Miguel Santiago, and Cindy Montanez, an ex-Assembly member who’s running against Nury Martinez for that city council seat.

(You might remember Cindy’s cousin, Annamarie, who was recruited by UTLA to run against Monica Garcia in District 2. Needless to say, LA politics is an incestuous world.)

The Padilla Clan

The other faction includes State Senator (and former LA City Council President) Alex Padilla — who championed a teacher dismissal bill in 2012 but then dropped the issue this year — incoming City Councilman Felipe Fuentes, U.S. Congressman Tony Cardenas (who recently vacated the City Council seat that Martinez and Montanez are running for), and State Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra.

It doesn’t stop there.  Nury Martinez’ husband Jerry Guzman runs the field campaign for many pols within the clan, and who currently works for Bocanegra.

Ernie Cardenas had a connection to this clique, through his brother Tony. Zuniga also had a connection, through Nury Martinez, who wanted Zuniga to succeed her.

Both Martinez and Bocanegra endorsed Zuniga, but Padilla, Cardenas and Fuentes never did (neither have they endorsed Antonio Sanchez).

Why did the power brokers turn a cold shoulder to the two political newcomers? That’s not entirely clear, but it may have something to do with the Mayor.

Sanchez is a former aide to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is nominally aligned with the Alarcon clan, which backs Cindy Montanez.

One explanation is that Villaraigosa simply leaned on Padilla and Fuentes to support his former aide.

But some speculate that a trade was made — Padilla and Fuentes would sit the School Board race out, and in exchange, the Mayor would endorse Nury Martinez for City Council (as he eventually did).

Another possibility is that Padilla and Fuentes simply didn’t think Zuniga or Cardenas were ready for primetime. Or, they didn’t feel up for a fight with the SEIU.

And then Monica Garcia — Villaraigosa’s most trusted School Board member — may have asked the Mayor to endorse Martinez.

Previous posts: Just How Connected Is Antonio Sanchez?; The Decline and Fall of Iris Zuniga; Sanchez Supports Classroom Breakfast & Teacher Dismissal Initiatives

Iris Zuniga, Possible Board Candidate

Both UTLA and the education reform community are likely to pick candidates and dump money into independent expenditure campaigns supporting them. But who will they pick?

One possible candidate for ed reformers in District 6 is Iris Zuniga (pictured), the Chief Operating Officer of Youth Policy Institute, a large charter school operator. Its Executive Director, Dixon Slingerland, is very active in LAUSD politics, and YPI employees contribute a lot of money to local elections, according to the City Ethics Commission’s website.

Whoever runs will have to navigate the tricky terrain of Northeast Valley politics. covering the northeast San Fernando Valley, a region dominated by two political cliques.

And perhaps nowhere was the scramble madder than in the Senate education committee, where lawmakers desperately tried to amend AB 5, a bill that would change how public school teachers are evaluated.

Among many issues being debated are the appropriate use of student achievement in teacher evaluations, the role of local bargaining agreements, political relationships between unions and Democratic lawmakers, and the fate of the lawsuit known as Doe v. Deasy, which would make student achievement part of teacher evaluation in LAUSD.

John Fensterwald of Ed Source has been tracking the bill and explaining its evolution wonderfully: “Taken together, the amendments would restore districts’ authority to set local standards used to evaluate teachers and explicitly require that state standardized test scores be used as one measure,” he writes in this story (More amendments coming to AB 5).  However, “sensing that AB 5 is an uncertain experiment in collaboration between unions and districts, the committee is also requiring that the bill be reviewed in five years and sunset in six if found not to work.”

Superintendent John Deasy and others in Los Angeles are worried that AB 5 could disrupt ongoing negotiations mandated by a judge in Doe v. Deasy to create new teacher evaluations that include some measure of pupil progress.

In an email to me yesterday, Ben Golombek, Deputy Chief of Staff to Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes (AB 5’s sponsor) wrote that “there’s also a provision in the bill that would allow any current evaluation process can stay in place for the duration of the agreement, so whatever agreement they reach under Doe v. Deasy in LA will stand.”

In the meantime, SI&A reports that Governor Brown has vetoed AB 1765, which would have created a “master teacher” program, and that SB 885, which would promote agencies collecting and sharing student date has been revived (see: Brown rejects master teacher bill, measure to link student data advances).

The latest word from EdSource is that AB 5 is being revised slightly to try and mollify opponents and also to help make the state eligible for a No Child Left Behind waiver (see: Fuentes agrees to compromises on AB 5: Are they enough?). If approved, the amended bill could go back to the State Senate education committee early next week. But it’s not clear that’s going to happen without further changes. Romero, EdVoice and other education reformers are still strongly opposed to the law — as is LAUSD’s John Deasy.

What is AB 5? Why do ed reform groups, not to mention Deasy, hate it so much? And what is Fuentes offering to change?

The back story goes all the way back to the 1971 Stull Act, which mandates that teachers (and other accredited employees) in California be evaluated by objective criteria, including pupil progress. In almost every interpretation, that boils down to one thing: test scores.

Flash forward to 2011, when a group of anonymous parents and students teamed up with Ed Voice to sue LAUSD on the grounds that it was not enforcing the Stull Act, since it wasn’t using pupil progress to evaluate teachers or principals. The suit was called Doe v. Deasy, the irony being that the named defendant, Superintendent John Deasy, actually agreed with the plaintiffs. A judge recently ruled that the district was in fact not adhering to the Stull Act, and he ordered LAUSD and the unions to come up with a new evaluation system that would satisfy the law by December 4.

Which brings us to AB 5. Sponsored by Fuentes, the bill would essentially re-write the Stull Act. The “pupil progress” section would be obliterated, replaced with what the bill calls a “best practices teacher evaluation system.” The bill goes on to list the many attributes “best practices” would include, but the short of it is that teachers would be evaluated on what they do in the classrooms, as opposed to how their students perform.

“This is a bill that was ghostwritten by the CTA,” says Gloria Romero, former State Senate Majority Leader (and now head of California Democrats for Education Reform). “If enacted the way it is, it will set us back 40 years, in terms of teacher evaluations. It needs to be rewritten or abandoned.”

(CTA has not yet responded to my request for comment.)

On Wednesday, Ed Voice took out a full-page ad in the LA Times blasting Fuentes’ proposal: “AB 5 guts objective accountability of adult job performance in schools just as voters are being asked to invest more in education.” A number of other ed reform groups are lobbying against the bill, including Educators 4 Excellence, Students First and Alliance for a Better Community.

When I spoke with Superintendent Deasy last week, he said he found the timing of the Fuentes bill, coming so soon after the judge’s order in Doe v. Deasy, “unusual.” He also expressed dismay that the bill is funded by $89 million out of the Quality Education Investment Act, or QEIA, which provides money to low-income, low performing schools in order lower class size. That bill was the product of heavy lobbying from, yes, the CTA.

“CTA, which is like this very powerful organization, have spent every ounce of their capital making sure nothing happens to QEIA,” said Deasy. “This bill takes away QEIA funds – this is how AB 5 is being funded. I find that perplexing. I don’t understand it.”

“All sides of the issues agree that the QEIA funds are important and not something we should be cutting,” says Evan Stone, co-founder and co-CEO of Educators 4 Excellence.

According to a document sent to us by Ed Voice, the QEIA cuts would weigh heavily on LAUSD. District schools stand to lose a total of $30 million if AB 5 passes. Bell Senior High, for example, would lose $1.1 million, while John Adams Middle School would lose $300,00.

SI&A has helpful links to the Fuentes proposal and the recent changes he’s offered (see: Student scores at heart of new teacher ratings nationally).  The Senate has until August 31, the last day of the legislative session, to do something about AB 5.

“Everybody is on pins and needles,” says Romero. “This is the time of the year when, basically, the legislature is on call, so they can meet at any time.”  She’s not sure what’s gonna happen, but she knows one thing: “Sausage-making is taking place.”

Fuentes agrees to compromises on AB 5: Are they enough? Ed Source: At the 11th hour, the author of the bill to rewrite the teacher evaluation law has offered compromises intended to placate opponents and to qualify the state for a waiver from the No Child Left Behind law. The latter may work, but probably not the former.

In California Politics, Teachers union are to fear Channel 6 News Online: In lawsuits against the state and the Los Angeles Unified School District, they allege that a number of union-backed laws “prevent school administrators from prioritizing or even considering the interests of their students.”

Many UC, CSU students aren’t ready for college-level writing; USC program tries to help KPCC: The 94 students in this year’s program competed to get in from Los Angeles urban high schools with low college attendance rates. For half of their six-hour days, they concentrate on intensive writing courses that offer what few of them have experienced before: one-on-one instruction, peer assistance and revision, revision, revision.

La Puente High School Student Injured in Stabbing NBC: The incident — an altercation between two students — took place just before 3 p.m. at Bassett High School.

Survey show student scores at heart of new teacher ratings nationally SI&A:  Of 21 states that passed major restructuring of educator evaluation systems during the past three years – all have included analysis of student performance as part the review, according to a new study released Thursday.

Offensive High School Tradition Finally Cancelled AP:  A Southern California high school canceled an annual dress-up day for seniors, saying that students who dressed as gang members, a U.S. Border Patrol agent and a pregnant woman pushing a stroller demeaned Latinos.

A number of other ed reform groups are strongly opposed to the measure, including California Democrats for Education Reform, Alliance for a Better Community and Educators 4 Excellence.

Ed Voice was instrumental in bringing about the Doe v. Deasy lawsuit, arguing that LAUSD was failing to abide by the Stull Act, which mandates that teachers be evaluated based on a number of objective criteria, including pupil progress. A judge recently ordered the district and the unions to come up with new evaluations that satisfy the 1971 law.

I spoke with Superintendent Deasy last week about a number of topics, including AB 5, of which he had this to say:

Is it disappointing that the [Stull] Act, even though it’s kind of a crappy act, has a very strong amendment to it in 1999, that says that certain achievements should be part of it, and up until now we’ve never used it, now we’re planning on using it and now we’re just gonna get rid of that [by passing AB 5]? Yeah, it’s really disappointing.

 

Is it odd to me that this happens in the middle of once this lawsuit pops up? I think I find the timing unusual.