4 Vie for School Board Seat as Slavkin Departs

The imminent departure of longtime Los Angeles Board of Education member Mark Slavkin clears the path for the first open race in a decade for the school board seat covering the western San Fernando Valley and West Los Angeles.

Four hopefuls have cast their bids to succeed Slavkin in next month’s primary election. With two of those contenders living in the Valley, the race also opens the door for a second Valley voice to join the seven-member board and represent the area’s specific concerns, especially at a time when the school breakup movement seems dormant.

Slavkin, an eight-year incumbent and breakup opponent from West Los Angeles, is leaving the board to work full time at the Getty Education Institute for the Arts.

His district, which stretches from Porter Ranch in Northridge to Los Angeles International Airport, is one of three with races in the April 8 election. Julie Korenstein, a Tarzana resident whose district represents the mid-Valley, faces three opponents in her bid for reelection, and incumbent Victoria Castro, from East Los Angeles, is running unopposed.

But it is the race for Slavkin’s District 4 seat that will ensure the board a new member. Korenstein, a 10-year school board veteran, is expected to win reelection.

Although the District 4 contenders support Slavkin’s long-standing push for more local control at schools, they differ markedly in how to achieve that goal.

There is Chatsworth resident Diana Dixon-Davis, a homemaker who for years has led the effort to break up the 670,000-student school district; former mayoral aide Valerie Fields; parent-activist Debra Greenfield of West Hills; and Westside labor attorney and parent volunteer Kenneth Sackman.

Fields, one of two apparent front-runners, is supported by a $130,000 bankroll and numerous endorsements including United Teachers-Los Angeles, the district’s largest union and one that has a reputation for propelling its favored candidates into office. The union announced its support for Fields in October, long before anyone else had entered the race, and has given $50,000 to her campaign.

At 70, Fields boasts the longest resume, including years as an elementary school teacher in the 1950s and ‘60s in New Jersey and Los Angeles, and two decades as an aide to former Mayor Tom Bradley, when she served as his liaison to the Westside Jewish communities and to education leaders.

She came out of retirement to run for the school board “to restore excellence in the schools,” with a big thrust to restoring art programs dropped because of budget cuts.

“I understand the education system,” Fields said. “I have had the experience of taking children who couldn’t even hold a pencil, and by the end of the year knew everything because I taught them.”

Fields touts her political contacts as a boon for getting legislators to secure more funding and other resources for the nation’s second-largest school district. Her endorsement list reads like a who’s who of state and local politicians including Mayor Richard Riordan, L.A. County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, and school board members Castro, David Tokofsky and George Kiriyama.

“People know me; they know I’ve been effective,” said Fields, whose three grandchildren attend public schools in Salt Lake City and Sacramento County. One of Fields’ four children works in public education as a principal in a Sacramento-area school district.

Fields at times seems long on rhetoric and short on specifics. In explaining how she would bring back excellence, for example, the former teacher said she wanted to “bring insight on adopting educational philosophies in pilot programs that bring results.” Asked to identify the philosophies or pilot programs, Fields was at a loss.

“I don’t know which pilot programs are there, maybe there are new pilot programs that need to be established,” she said in an interview. “One can’t come from outside and know everything that’s going on in the district.”

At a candidates forum earlier this month when asked her opinion on efforts to break up the school district, Fields mistakenly cited Carson as an example of how smaller isn’t necessarily better. Carson, however, is still part of L.A. Unified, although the city has petitioned to secede from the district.

What Fields said she does know without question--from her days at City Hall--is how to cut through the bureaucratic red tape, lobby political power brokers and try to bring divisive groups together.

“I am very adept at bringing people together,” she said. “I think that’s something the board needs very badly.”

Labor attorney Sackman--the other front-runner in the race--believes the school board needs a business-savvy member able to better manage the district’s $5-billion budget, and make sure more money goes into classrooms.

“There’s nobody else in the race who’s handled a payroll, who’s handled a budget,” Sackman said in an interview. “I do this everyday with my clients by representing unions and management.”

Since announcing his candidacy in November, Sackman has raised $70,000 and has secured the endorsements of at least two dozen unions, including the California School Employees Assn. and the LAUSD Police Officers Assn.

Sackman, 45, has also been a parent volunteer since his two daughters were in elementary school in West L.A., and contends that involvement coupled with his business experience make him a prime contender for the board seat. His daughters currently are enrolled at Venice High School’s Foreign Language Magnet.

Sackman is quick to criticize Fields as being out of touch with education and a potential mouthpiece of the teachers union. He is even quicker to point out that he is beholden to no one, except the parents and teachers who urged him to run for the school board seat.

“We have three retired teachers and three retired principals running a $5-billion business and I don’t think we need another one,” Sackman said. “My focus is the fact that I’m trying to become the first person with a finance and business background to serve on the school board.”

Contender Dixon-Davis doesn’t see the school district as a business.

“Education doesn’t work like a business,” she said. “You have to do cost-benefit analysis, but you have to look at the interest of the children to do that.”

The 51-year-old mother of three has been an active volunteer in schools for more than a dozen years, from helping at her sons’ schools and serving on the local PTA to volunteering in past school board races.

“I’m a problem solver,” Dixon-Davis said. “I’m not afraid to go before people with a relevant issue.”

Dixon-Davis’ biggest issue in recent years has been her effort to create at least one new school district in the Valley. She admits the cause has worked against her in the campaign by alienating the powerful teachers union. But she’s not worried.

“I’ve been supportive of breakup now for the last 15 years,” said Dixon-Davis, who has collected only $2,000 for her campaign. “But it hasn’t stopped me from making whatever I’m involved in better.”

Dixon-Davis’ main goal is to make the school district more accessible to parents and direct more attention to Valley needs, such as the distance Valley residents must travel to attend board meetings and the severe heat in Valley schools during the summer.

Dixon-Davis suggested placing all school board agendas and budgets on the Internet and holding board meetings at various locations throughout L.A. Unified rather than at 450 N. Grand Ave., the district’s headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. She also wants to increase academic excellence by assuring that no elementary school child graduates without knowing the basics: reading, writing and arithmetic.

“Right now, it’s the reverse with social promotion going on and instructors hoping the students will pass at some point,” she said. “Instead they’re getting to high school and are failing and have to go to summer school and then consider dropping out.”

Parent-activist Greenfield also espouses a back-to-basics approach. Greenfield, 49, is a staunch opponent of the California Learning Assessment Systems (CLAS) test and filed a lawsuit in 1994 against the controversial exam, which she said denigrated family values. Although her suit failed to stop the test from being administered, she succeeded in stopping her own children from taking it.

Greenfield, a mother of three, also opposes condom distribution and counseling to homosexual students, but favors voluntary prayer in schools.

“There’s a whole paradigm shift in education,” the West Hills resident said. “I want to switch education back to academics.”

Greenfield cited cooperative learning, whole language and integrated math as a few problems holding children back from learning. She suggested improving teacher retention rates and returning to basic phonics and mathematics as solutions.

Parents “want broad-based, high-quality academic education in a safe environment and that is what’s best for children,” Greenfield said. “I think it’s important for a board member to fight for this because it’s what’s important to the parents.”

Though she lives in the Valley, Greenfield said she does not see much difference in Valley concerns and those in the rest of the district.

“It’s not necessarily the Valley that’s not getting heard, it’s the kids who aren’t getting heard,” Greenfield said. “That goes beyond the Valley to the entire district. And that’s what we’ve got to improve.”

Incumbent board member Korenstein, 53, has made her career representing Valley-specific issues such as installing air conditioning at schools, and she has supported the creation of a separate Valley school district.

Korenstein was elected in 1987 and is seeking her fourth term as representative of District 6. Given her number of years on the board, Korenstein said, her absence if she’s defeated would create “a terrible vacuum” on the board.

“It’s been a very difficult time for public education . . . but we’ve been able to turn things around,” Korenstein said. “When I joined the board, it was totally centralized, and we’ve made a tremendous effort to decentralize and for schools to take over their budgets, and I think I had a lot to do with that.”

But Korenstein’s three challengers contend she hasn’t done enough for her constituents from Van Nuys, Sherman Oaks, Granada Hills, Sunland/Tujunga and parts of Northridge. During her tenure, student test scores have plummeted and school buildings have decayed.

“For the last 10 years under the leadership of the incumbent, our school district has been on a downward spiral,” challenger Jeff Tung of North Hills said at a recent candidates forum at Van Nuys High School.

Tung, 27, a business manager at a Los Angeles law firm, is also chairman of a school district advisory board. He intends to focus his campaign on student needs and to “demystify” the school board.

Ethel Barnes, a retired administrator of the California School of Law, is pushing for a return to the basics, emphasizing phonics and structured math programs. The 65-year-old Sherman Oaks resident has three grown children who attended private school in the 1970s after she became frustrated with L.A. Unified. One of her three grandchildren currently attends a special-education class in a Valley elementary school.

“I think students and parents deserve a lot more for their tax dollars,” Barnes said. “I don’t find that this board has been diligent in its job in doing what’s best for these students.”

Billy Bauman, 46, a children’s rights advocate who has filed numerous complaints against the district, wants to launch the school district into the 21st century with computers in every classroom and by encouraging corporate sponsorship to acquire materials for students.

“I’m here on behalf of the students,” said Bauman, who lives in Van Nuys.

Korenstein is clearly the front-runner in the race, with about $75,000 in her campaign purse, $50,000 of which came from UTLA. Tung has raised about $6,000 in contributions, while Bauman has gathered $900 and Barnes less than $500.

Korenstein’s challengers said that although they have less money they hope to have more contact with voters to try and pull off a victory.

“I’m running this campaign on $650 and getting this election one vote at a time,” said Bauman.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Candidates Running for School Board District 4

Candidate: Diana Dixon-Davis

Age: 51

Residence: Chatsworth

Occupation: Homemaker,

demographer.

Experience: Parent-volunteer in local schools for 15 years; PTA member; volunteer with numerous organizations. Spearheaded efforts to break the Valley away from Los Angeles Unified School District.

Plans for the district: Make board meetings and district information more accessible to parents. Make funding for schools more equitable. Increase school board interest on Valley-related issues.

*

Candidate: Valerie Fields

Age: 70

Residence: Los Angeles

Occupation: Retired school teacher and former aide to Mayor Tom Bradley.

Experience: Served as Bradley’s liaison for educational concerns. Recently worked as a consultant in the arts and helped form an educational jazz program.

Plans for the district: Reintroduce arts into the schools. Bring more cohesion to the school board.

*

Candidate: Debra Greenfield

Age: 49

Residence: West Hills

Occupation: Volunteer educational activist.

Experience: Member of local PTA and opponent of CLAS testing. Organized beautification committee for her children’s school. Has spoken before local groups about trends in education.

Plans for the district: Ensure that each child reads at grade level or above. Return to back-to-basics math, writing and reading instruction.

*

Candidate: Kenneth Sackman

Age: 45

Residence: West Los Angeles

Occupation: Labor attorney

Experience: Has volunteered extensively in his daughters’ public schools since 1985. Founding member of parents group at Castle Heights Elementary School. Served on local PTA group. Has coached local school basketball teams.

Plans for the district: Increase local control to schools; improve business and fiscal understanding on school board.

Candidates Running for School Board District 6

Candidate: Ethel Barnes

Age: 65

Residence: Sherman Oaks

Occupation: Retired law school administrator.

Experience: Co-founder of Simon Greenleaf School of Law in Orange County. Advisor to task force on juvenile justice.

Plans for the district: Work to improve reading skills for all children. Return phonics to elementary school curriculum.

*

Candidate: Billy Bauman

Age: 46

Residence: Van Nuys

Occupation: Marketing and sales director for North Hollywood audio corporation.

Experience: Child-rights advocate. Member of a child-rights advocacy group, RESPECT & the Assn. for Accountability and Equitable Education.

Plans for the district: Return to the basics. Increase student, parent and community participation. Establish partnerships with businesses.

*

Candidate: Julie Korenstein

Age: 53

Residence: Tarzana

Occupation: Incumbent

Experience: First elected to school board in 1987. Helped develop school-based management proposal.

Plans for the district: Continue to champion Valley viewpoints on school board, work on decentralization efforts and implement class-size reduction.

*

Candidate: Jeff Tung

Age: 27

Residence: North Hills

Occupation: Business manager for a Beverly Hills law firm.

Experience: Chairman for Asian Pacific American Education Commission, an LAUSD advisory board. Volunteer and member of several Chinese and ethnic organizations. President of Chinese Historical Society.

Plans for the district: Return to basics with phonics and math instruction. Reevaluate district’s bilingual program to improve bilingual education of students.

Los Angeles Unified School Board Election

Nine candidates will be running for three school district seats in the April 8 election. Four hopefuls have cast their bids for the 4th District to succeed Mark Slavkin, who has resigned from the board. Incumbent Victoria Castro is running uncontested in District 2. And senior school board member Julie Korenstein faces three challengers for District 6 in the mid-San Fernando Valley.