Lydia Gutierrez

This is the next in a series of profiles on candidates running in the March 3 primary for the LA Unified school board. Today’s focus is Lydia Gutierrez, a candidate for the District 7 seat. 

Although she has no major endorsements and little campaign money, Lydia Gutierrez is expecting to make a big splash in LA Unified’s District 7 school board race as she looks to unseat sitting board President Richard Vladovic.

Could it work, when voters cast ballots on March 3? One need not look any further than her 2014 campaign for state superintendent of public instruction for proof.

Despite going up against two candidates with millions of funds in their coffers, Gutierrez received close to 1 million votes and 24.5 percent of the total, finishing a close third behind Marshall Tuck (28.9 percent) and the incumbent, Tom Torlakson (46.5). Torlakson eventually beat Tuck in a runoff.

“I think I did pretty well for having spent $30,000 dollars, and my opponents spent $10 million,” Gutierrez said. “I really had an excellent platform, having experience in business and education and knowing the changes that we’ve gone through for many years.”

Gutierrez, a Republican, has been a teacher with the Long Beach Unified School District for decades and also spent six and a half years working in the aerospace industry. She credits a big part of her success in the state superintendent’s race to her opposition to the new Common Core State Standards initiative, which Tuck and Torlakson supported. She plans to contintue to advocate for doing away with Common Core, should she win a seat on the LAUSD board.

“I have a saying: Common Core is a theory licensed as a product, marketed as a standard,” Gutierrez said. “It’s a theory that has never been tested. Nowhere can anyone prove any documentation. They have not tested it. That’s why it’s called a theory.”

The last few school board races that went to a runoff have typically featured a candidate backed by reform movement, pro-charter money versus a candidate backed by union funds. The reform vs. union battle also played out in the state superintendent’s race, with reformers backing Tuck and unions backing Torlakson. Gutierrez said she isn’t interested in either and only has a handful of individual endorsements.

“I received a million votes [in the state superintendent’s race], and not one endorsement. I’m not into endorsements. My endorsees in the past have been harassed,” she said.

In a repeat of her state run, Gutierrez is also lagging far behind her opponents in campaign funds. Through the last reporting period to the City Ethics Commission, she reported having raised just $1,200 in campaign contributions to $67,867 for Valdovic and $26,555 for the seat’s other challenger, Euna Anderson.

Certainly, her views on charter schools and former Superintendent John Deasy — who is a darling in the pro-charter community — won’t earn her reform support any time soon.

“I think Deasy came in to set LAUSD up for failure so that they could create more charter schools, because you have to have failure so that you can get those parents to sign signatures so that you can get a new school. They have to create failure,” Gutierrez said.

In referring to the frequent accusation that charters screen students to keep the school’s test scores high, she said, “In a public school, any child that attends, we have to give a quality education to by law. A charter school can say, ‘You don’t qualify, you didn’t meet this qualification,’ and they can say goodbye to that child. And that’s a serious problem.”

Gutierrez is also no fan of Deasy’s replacement, Ramon Cortines, and she is critical of Vladovic for voting to rehire him. She doesn’t mince words on the subject, referring to Cortines in a recent blog post as a “sexual predator,” a refererence to a sexual harassment lawsuit that was brought against him by a district employee but never proven in court.

“Dr. Vladovic, he had no business rehiring Cortines. There is no excuse for that,” she told LA School Report. “He’s been there for eight years, you can’t tell me he had nobody else? There was no one in training? You can’t tell me in that the whole distict, you had no one in training? There was no plan for the future.”

If elected, Gutierrez said she would call for a review of Cortines and look to replace him, possibly with Chief Deputy Superintendent Michelle King.

Gutierrez is also critical of Vladovic for signing off on the ill-fated iPad and MiSiS programs, and said they are indicative of the board’s lack of sound financial planning and oversight of the district.

One of the key components of her plan for the district is to bring an increased level of financial accountably by creating a centralized online data system that tracks and clearly documents how the district’s money is spent, similar to the site created by LA City Controller Ron Galperin that was hailed by many as a move toward fiscal transparency by the city.

“Vladovic approved MiSiS and iPads? There should be a through understanding of how the money is being spent,” she said.

LAUSD school board member Bennett Kayser

The debating season kicks off tomorrow night with the first of several scheduled candidate forums for those running in the three contested LA United board districts.

But it’s starting with a buzzkill.

After committing to appear, board member Bennett Kayser has withdrawn from the first of the District 5 debates, scheduled at the Goodwill Community Enrichment Center in northeast LA. His campaign told organizers that a “scheduling conflict” would preclude him from appearing in that debate and another, on Feb. 10 at the Oldtimers Foundation Family Center in Huntington Park.

Both events are sponsored by United Way-LA, which is also staging forums for candidates in the District 3 and District 7 races.

“We believe the constituents in District 5 deserve to hear from all candidates,” Elmer Roldan, a United Way official, told LA School Report. “These forums are designed to give all candidates the opportunity to answer questions from the community and to demonstrate they’re the better candidate running. He and his campaign have a responsibility to prove to communities that he can lead this district.”

Roldan confirmed that Kayser’s two challengers — Ref Rodriguez and Andrew Thomas —  would still appear in the two United Way debates, and so would all six contenders in the District 3 event and all three in a District 7 event. Tamar Galatzan is running for reelection in 3 and board President Richard Vladovic is defending his seat in 7.

Sarah Bradshaw, Kayser’s chief of staff, confirmed that Kayser intends to participate in three other debates for the District 5 candidates, all of them in February.

Elizabeth Badger

This is the next in a series of profiles on candidates running in the March 3 primary for the LA Unified school board. Today’s focus is Elizabeth Badger, a candidate for the District 3 seat.

For Elizabeth Badger the race for LA Unified’s School Board District 3 seat is personal.

“I’m angry and fed up and I want to do something about it,” she told LA School Report, explaining what pushed her into the crowded race to represent most of the San Fernando Valley.

Badger’s two youngest children — a son in 8th grade and a daughter in 5th — were both diagnosed with autism and ADHD, and they require special education. But getting them the right classes with the right kind of support was a Sisyphean process, she says.

It began with her oldest. “I wanted to keep my son in a traditional public school so I had to learn the system completely on my own to advocate for him because he was being treated so badly where he was,” she said. After years of struggle, he’s now “blossomed” with a 3.75 grade point average that delights Badger to no end.

But it was a long slog, and it wasn’t cheap, she said. She ended up suing the district twice.

“I just don’t think parents should have to fight that hard,” she said.

Badger is now taking the fight into District 3, the most widely-contested of the four seats with elections this year. Tamar Galatzan is the incumbent, and Badger is one of five challengers.

This is Badger’s third run at a public office in less than two years. In April 2013, he finished fourth in a field of six for a City Council seat, winning 9.3 percent of the vote. Five months later, she placed seventh in a field of 11 in a special election for a California assembly seat, with 2.8 percent of the vote.

In this race, Galatzan has been endorsed by education reform advocates with deep pockets while Badger remains largely self-financed as she scrambles for campaign support. Most of the $12,000 she has raised has come through personal loans. And an endorsements by the teachers union, UTLA, or SEIU Local 99, which represents about 30,000 LA Unified employees, are unlikely.

Although she’s not familiar with the specific terms currently under negotiation between the district and the teachers union, Badger said she supports a substantial raise for teachers, effective immediately, saying “they’ve sacrificed a lot for our kids.” As the CEO and founder of the Minority Outreach Committee, a non-profit community group that hosts panels on economic development in the San Fernando Valley, she argues that she would be an asset in the negotiations.

Badger is relying on voters who are disappointed in Galatzan, especially those who are upset over the district’s controversial one-to-one iPad program, which Galatzan supported.

“There are a lot of people in the Valley who are mad about that waste of money,” she said, adding a prediction that they are not likely to re-elect Galatzan after the public debacle.

“I just need them to think of me,” she said.

UTLA rally at James Monroe High School Nov. 20, 2014

How long have they been at it now, four, five six months?

Whatever it is, negotiators for LA Unified and the teachers union, UTLA, appear as close to agreement on a new labor contract as they were when bargaining began.

Maybe they are inching forward on some issues. But the fact remains, teachers are still without a pay raise, as they have been since World War II, it seems, and the pace of talks gives no indication a deal is within reach.

And that makes perfect sense.

Even with one of the union’s prime objectives completed —  the departure of former Superintendent John Deasy — an agreement seems well off in the distance, and here are three reasons why:

First, the union might find a better deal on the other side of this year’s school board elections, in which four members are running to hold their seats — George McKenna, Tamar Galatzan, Bennett Kayser and President Richard Vladovic.

The current board leans pro-UTLA on many issues, with two strong union supporters in Kayser and Monica Ratliff and three members whose votes are less predictable but generally teacher friendly in Vladovic, Steve Zimmer and McKenna.

As things stand, McKenna is safe, running unopposed in the March 3 primary. Kayser and Vladovic are facing challengers but have to be considered favorites.

But what if Galatzan, a strong supporter of charter schools facing five challengers, were forced into a May runoff, and all the voters who preferred ABT — anyone but Tamar — coalesced to deny her reelection?

If that challenger has a soft spot for teachers, you can imagine UTLA’s interest in providing financial backing for someone who would put the union in close proximity to an impenetrable majority. That could also change the tenure of labor negotiations and, further, lead to hiring a decidedly pro-teacher superintendent to replace Ramon Cortines.

Given those possibilities, it’s hard to imagine why the union would settle with the district before the results are final.

Here’s the second reason: teacher unrest.

For now, it’s difficult for outsiders to gauge any level of frustration among teachers and, if it’s there, what’s fueling it: Is the rank-and-file supportive of the leadership’s negotiating strategies or disgusted with its tactics? Are teachers really jonesing for a strike? Are they even paying attention to the pace of negotiations, given their daily challenges in the classroom?

Remember, in last year’s union elections, only about a quarter of the 35,000 members voted.

Some might consider that an apathetic body politic.

The leadership apparently recognizes as much, which helps explain the on-going solidarity campaign of “escalating actions,” as outlined on the UTLA website. They began last fall with “red shirt Tuesday” and continue through a “mass rally” on Feb. 26 in Pershing Square. 

Beyond that? The new union leadership continues to threaten a strike, which is what union leaders do when they’re locked into tough negotiations. It’s leverage. But leverage is only so strong as the constituent support, determination and indignation behind it.

The district, meanwhile, has tried mitigating union leverage by making it clear that any raise would be retroactive to the beginning of the school year — so long as teachers are teaching, of course. Teachers might not regain pay lost during a strike, and they are smart enough to know that the damage of lost instruction time would only redound to them once classes resume.

The third reason is salary negotiations, perhaps the one issue that has most tangible implications for both sides.

With its various offers to the union, the district has done little more than move the shells around. No matter where the pea is, it doesn’t get larger. The district insists it can’t afford a larger pea.

The union, meanwhile, has steadily reduced its demand from a high of 10 percent for the year to 9 percent to 8.5 percent, leaving the sides in their current position, about 4.5 percent apart.

That poses a real political challenge for first-year president Alex Caputo-Pearl, who campaigned on creating a more assertive union to change the culture for district teachers. Part of the promise was more take-home pay. The question for his membership is deciding how much is enough to cut a deal and how little is worth moving to the picket line.

Taking into account the slow pace of talks so far, a less than unified membership, school board elections and the formal steps required prior to any job action, including a declaration of an impasse by one side or the other and mediation, any agreement would now come closer to the end of 2014-15 than the beginning — adding one more year on UTLA’s long march to change. 

Ref Rodriguez

This is the next in a series of profiles on candidates running in the March 3 primary for the LA Unified school board. Today’s focus is Refugio Rodriguez, a candidate for the District 5 seat.

What do you say to a man who founded a chain of charter schools but insists he doesn’t want to be known as “the charter guy?”

Hmm…

“I know, it’s funny right?” Ref Rodriguez says, not really laughing and not waiting for any particular answer to the proposition. He is one of three candidates running for District 5 school board seat in the March election, and he is the supposed charter guy in question.

Frankly, it’ll be an uphill battle for Rodriguez, 43, to fight the perception of him as a pro-charter challenger, facing the staunchly anti-charter incumbent, Bennett Kayser. The third candidate is Andrew Thomas, a professor of education at the online Walden University and operator of a research company that consults with school districts, including LA Unified.

Rodriguez launched a network of 15 unaffiliated charter schools in northeast Los Angeles, where he grew up, and in northeast San Fernando Valley. He was a young man at the time, only 27, and after working at a private Catholic school, he said, “I was frustrated by the incremental growth in LAUSD schools that was leaving so many kids — kids like me — behind.”

Over the years, the schools, called Partnerships to Uplift Communities (PUC), have grown to serve about 5,000 students. All got their seed money from the biggest players in education reform — either the Walton Family Foundation or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He says all but a handful of PUC schools out-perform the surrounding public schools.

Further complicating matters in his perception challenges is this month’s endorsement by the California Charter Schools Association, the most powerful and well-funded charter school advocacy group in the state.

“Rodriguez will add another sensible voice to the thoughtful coalition of three of four incumbent board members seeking re-election,” CCSA Advocates — the political arm of CCSA — said in a statement.

It continued, “Rodriguez represents a significant improvement over the incumbent in Board District 5, Mr. Kayser, who has consistently opposed high-quality charter schools and fought to deny educational options to tens of thousands of hard-working families.”

The group has already contributed about $3,200 in independent expenditures to his campaign. Although it’s not a large amount, he says he expects CCSA will ramp up financial support as the race heats up.

Overall, he has raised $51,001 through the most recent reporting period, nearly as much much as Kayser, $56,503, according to the City Ethics Commission. Thomas has raised $9,212.

Despite the evidence of his deep ties to the charter school movement and advocacy groups that have supported the reversal of teacher tenure laws, Rodriguez does not relent: “There’s more to me than that, and this campaign isn’t about charters. It’s about low income Latino and African American students, kids who shouldn’t have to litigate to get [the education] they deserve.”

Technically, it’s been years since he’s run PUC. He stepped down in 2009 to help launch Partners for Developing Futures, “a social investment fund dedicated to investing in leaders of color to start and grow high performing charter schools.” He’s also an adjunct professor in the School of Education at his alma mater, Loyola Marymount University, where he helped develop a Master’s and Administrative Credential Program for aspiring leaders in Charter Schools.

And most recently, he was appointed by Governor Brown to serve on the California Commission for Teacher Credentialing.

Rodriguez is critical of the seven-member board for being so polarized.

Of his opponent, Kayser, he says, “He votes against very successful charter schools that are working for some of the poorest kids in the district just because he’s against the idea of charters. Not because it’s what’s best for students.”

It is time for a new pathway, he says. For years it’s been, “reformers on one side, on the other the entrenched bureaucracy. We need a third way.”

While it’s the type of olive-branch language often invoked by members of both sides of the education debate, it is almost improbable that he’ll get any support from unions.

Kayser has already been endorsed by SEIU 99, which represents cafeteria workers, janitors and bus drivers, among other district employees. And he’s a favorite of the teachers union, UTLA, as its strongest and most unwavering ally.

Plus, in the view of unions, Rodriguez is tainted by the Walton money he has accepted to launch many of the PUC schools; the Waltons own Wal-Mart, which SEIU has long campaigned against for their anti-union tactics and low hourly wages.

And, if board members Tamar Galatzan and Richard Vladovic win their re-election bids as incumbents often do, the presence of Rodriguez on the board (along with pro-reform member Monica Garcia) could shift the political balance, back to a pro-reform majority.

“I know people will paint me as a profiteer who’s against public schools,” he laments over the phone. “But the truth is I started a charter school because I couldn’t wait for the district to get its act together.”

After a beat of silence he adds, “I just hope voters give me a chance.”

So far, five debates have been scheduled, with one late this month and the others following in February.

The United Way is sponsoring four debates for the three seats that are competitive, and a collection of neighborhood councils in Northeast LA is sponsoring one debate for District 5. The United Way sponsors are providing childcare through registration (here).

Of the four board incumbents facing reelection on March 3, Tamar Galatzan in District 3 is facing five challengers, Bennett Kayser (District 5) and President Richard Vladovic (District 7) are each facing two challengers. George McKenna (District 1) is running unopposed and hence, there will be no District 1 debates.

In any race without a majority winner, the top two candidates will compete in a runoff on May 19.

The debates scheduled so far are:

• Board District 3 – Feb. 12 at 6 p.m. at North Hollywood High School
• Board District 5 – Jan. 28 at 6 p.m. at the Goodwill Community Enrichment Center in Northeast LA
• Board District 5 – Feb. 5 at 7 p.m. at Eagle Rock High School
• Board District 5 – Feb. 10 at 6 p.m. at the Oldtimers Foundation Family Center in Huntington Park
• Board District 7 – Feb. 6 at 6 p.m. at the Granada Theater in Wilmington

After a random draw of letters, the ballot order is now set for how candidate names will appear. Here’s the way they will be listed:

District 1

George McKenna, incumbent

(No one else qualified)

District 3

Carl Petersen

Ankur Patel

Scott Schmerelson

Filiberto Gonzalez

Tamar Galatzan, incumbent

Elizabeth Badger Bartels

District 5

Ref Rodriguez

Bennett Kayser, incumbent

Andrew Thomas

District 7

Lydia Gutierez

Euna Anderson

Richard Vladovic, incumbent

How helpful is being listed first? It’s a question that political scientists have studied for years. Here’s the money quote from “On the Causes and Consequences of Ballot Order Effects” — a recent paper by Marc Meredith of the University of Pennsylvania and Yuval Salant of Northwestern:

“We find that candidates listed first on the ballot are between four and five percentage
points more likely to win office than expected absent order effects.”

Theirs is a highly-academic treatise on the subject that takes into account things like ap,j = αp,t(j) + Incp,jλt(j) + εp,j where αp,t(j) = δp,t(j) + Incp,jγp,t(j) + Xjβp,t(j) .

But in an LA Unified school board race, the more likely influences are incumbency, financial support and turnout.

* In an earlier version several names were mistakenly reversed. This version correct that.

LA Unified school board President Richard Vladovic

* UPDATED

Now that the list of eligible candidates for the LA Unified School Board’s four open seats in 2015 is finalizing, the district’s powerful unions are starting to choose which ones they’ll back and throw their considerable resources behind.

The first endorsement came today: The union representing school cafeteria workers, custodians, special education assistants, and other school service workers union — Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99 — is mobilizing its membership to support school board President Richard Vladovic in the race for District 7.

For now, he has one challenger in Lydia Guttierez, an educator, and another in Euna Anderson, a principal.

In a statement released today, the union said, “Throughout his career, Dr. Vladovic has consistently demonstrated a profound commitment to improving the lives of children and families …This summer, Dr. Vladovic presided over the school board as they adopted a $15 minimum wage – effectively lifting over 20,000 families out of poverty and setting a standard for workers across the country.”

SEIU 99 also pledged to “work tirelessly” to ensure Vladovic serves a third term.

Union members will meet in the coming weeks to decide on endorsements for candidates in other school board seats.

*Adds Euna Anderson as a qualified challenger.

As of today, all of the incumbents are officially in the running — Board President Richard Vladovic, George McKenna, Bennett Kayser, and Tamar Galatzan. But Manuel Montilla of the LA City Ethic Commission, told LA School Report the office will continue to verify petitions over the next 10 business days.

That means a presumably longer list will be finalized by Dec 17.

“You’ll see a lot more names that qualified as we go through the petitions,” he said, adding that most candidates filed their paperwork just before yesterday’s deadline.

As for McKenna, it looks like he will be running unopposed since the only candidate who filed an initial petition to run against him, Daymond Johnson, did not submit any of the final paperwork by yesterday’s deadline. The City Clerk’s office confirmed that Johnson had not met the deadline, leaving McKenna unopposed.

McKenna only recently joined the board after winning a special election over Alex Johnson in August to replace late board member Margueritte LaMotte, who died in December of 2013.

Here are the qualifying candidates so far:

District 1
George McKenna

District 3
Elizabeth Badger Bartels
Tamar Galatzan
Ankur Patel

District 5
Bennett Kayser
Ref Rodriguez
Andrew Thomas

District 7
Lydia A. Gutierrez
Richard Vladovic

George McKenna, flanked by Bernard Parks and Jan Perry

With tomorrow’s noon deadline approaching to file for next year’s LA Unified school board elections, the races are coming into view.

Seats in four of the board’s seven districts — 1, 3, 5 and 7 — are up for grabs, making the elections hugely influential on future district policies.

All four of the incumbents are running again and facing challengers, with the primary scheduled for March 3 and the general election on May 19. Here is a district-by-district breakdown of the school board races:

District 1

District 1 includes South Los Angeles, Palms and Baldwin Hills.

For the moment, this is the only race with a head-to-head contest. The incumbent, George McKenna, is the newest board member, having won a special election in August to fill the seat vacated by the death of Marguerite LaMotte last year.

McKenna’s victory was key in determining the current balance of power on the board, as his election shifted it to a 4-3 majority owing their seats, in large part, to financial support by United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). McKenna ran against a reform-backed candidate, Alex Johnson, and his victory was the latest in a string of pro-union wins against pro-charter, reformists in LA Unified school board elections.

McKenna holds a doctorate of education degree from Xavier University. He is a former LAUSD teacher and principal at George Washington Preparatory High School, where the academic turnaround he oversaw at the school was the subject of a 1986 TV movie starring Denzel Washington.

McKenna’s challenger is Daymond R., Johnson, president of the Amino Classified Employees Association, which represents the employees at Green Dot Public Schools.

District 3

District 3 includes Studio City, Sherman Oaks and the most of the West San Fernando Valley.

The District 3 race is the most crowded, with five challengers to incumbent Tamar Galatzan, who first won her seat in 2007. She is also a prosecutor with the city of Los Angeles and is viewed as a reform-backed candidate.

Her challengers are: Elizabeth Badger Bartels, a children’s advocate and businesswoman; Filiberto Gonzalez, a school parent and professor; Ankur Patel, a teacher, scientist and entrepreneur; Scott Mark Schmerelson, an administrator and retired teacher; and Carl J. Peterson, a businessman and activist parent.

District 5

District 5 includes the Northeast neighborhoods of Eagle Rock, Highland Park, Echo Park, Los Feliz and Atwater Village, as well as the cities of Bell and South Gate.

The incumbent Bennett Kayser will face at least two challengers. Kayser, a former teacher and community activist, was elected to the board in 2011 and is seen as one of the strongest pro-union members.

The challengers are Ref Rodriguez, a co-founder of PUC Schools, which operates a number of LA Unified charter schools; and Andrew Thomas, a professor of education at the online Walden University and operator of a research company that consults with school districts, including LA Unified. 

District 7

District 7 includes the South Bay communities of San Pedro, Lomita and Carson.

The race here will feature at least two challengers to current board President Richard Vladovic, who was first elected to the board in 2007. Originally a reform-backed candidate, Vladovic is seen by many to have more to a more neutral position since last year.

Vladovic has one of the fullest education resumes on the board. With a doctorate in education from USC, he is a former teacher, principal and school administrator, as well as a former superintendent of the West Covina School District.

His challengers are Euna Anderson, principal of the Vine Early Education Center and the Alexandria Early Education Center; and Lydia A. Guitierrez, an educator and member of the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council.

If additional candidates emerge by tomorrow’s deadline, LA School Report will provide updates on Monday.