Increased Spending Transforms School Board Elections

In 1992, Frank Ury raised about $4,000 and knocked on a lot of doors to win election to the Saddleback Valley Unified school board. Last year, the conservative activist from Mission Viejo and his allies spent more than 10 times that amount to defend his seat and boost two other candidates.

It wasn’t enough. A slate of centrist candidates and teacher-backed political groups knocked Ury out in November by spending what appears to be thousands of dollars more.

New campaign reports show that a political action committee controlled by the Saddleback Valley Educators Assn. spent more than $40,000 to help defeat Ury, on top of $24,000 spent by his three principal foes.

That race is but one example of the explosive growth of campaign spending in local school board politics, fueled in part by a new conservative activism in Orange County and counterpunching teachers unions.

In most districts here, it appears the time is long gone when a parent could get elected to the school board in a neighborhood campaign with fliers and volunteer footpower. That worries school activists who say big-time politics in local races doesn’t promote the interests of kids.

“It’s hard when you’re not connected to raise the money it takes to have a very visible campaign,” said Janice White, president of the Orange PTA. She predicts a heavily contested school board election there this fall. “That precludes people from running. It doesn’t make it open to the general public--for a mom-and-pop campaign, door-to-door. No longer. It’s very sad.”

The California Teachers Assn. said it donated $92,600 last year to Orange County candidates--more than it gave to candidates in any other county. That figure does not include “independent expenditures” made on behalf of various candidates and causes, CTA spokeswoman Sandra Jackson said. Figures for spending in past years were unavailable.

The Education Alliance, a Tustin-based political action committee opposed to teachers unions, reported spending $66,600 last year to support Orange County candidates from Yorba Linda to San Juan Capistrano. In 1994, the committee’s first year, it reported spending $62,000.

Of course, changes in school board politics mirror trends in other local elections in California. As the state’s population grows and families move in and out of neighborhoods at a rapid clip, politicians have been forced to spend more to reach voters through mail, television and radio advertisements.

Many Orange County school districts in recent years also have switched their elections from odd- to even-numbered years to save the cost of special elections. That has forced school candidates to fight for the attention of voters already bombarded by ads from candidates for state and federal office.

Still, the competition between the Education Alliance and teachers unions has also fueled the spending onslaught, people on both sides agree.

“There’s enormous money going into school races which shouldn’t be there,” said Elizabeth Parker, president of the Orange County Board of Education and a foe of the Education Alliance. “You have a situation where someone with a lot of money can influence what happens with the public schools. The teachers unions have upped the ante too.”

Ury, a co-founder of the Education Alliance, agreed with the latter statement.

“Any time you have a group whose basic instincts are for parental rights, local control and fighting teacher unions--the unions will fight that with every fiber in their bodies,” Ury said.