Tokofsky Dismisses Calls for Consensus

As he stumped for reelection to the Los Angeles school board, David Tokofsky stopped at his old employer, Marshall High School. The neo-Gothic campus is where Tokofsky forged his political persona 12 years ago as the coach of the school district’s first academic decathlon team to win a national championship.

Marshall’s student government wanted to know what Tokofsky would do for the school if he won a third term Tuesday or a in a possible May runoff.

“I’m not here to tell you what I’m going to do. I’m a public servant,” the former social studies teacher told them. “You tell me what to do.”

Slowly, students who had been looking out the windows entered the conversation. Some said they need more security officers around campus. Another wanted a new running track.

Tokofsky asked: “How about books? Teachers?” What do you need more? Facilities? Safety? Or knowledge?

Soon it became more than a conversation about Marshall’s needs, it was a lesson in economics, democratic exchange -- and more specifically, Tokofsky’s confrontational style.

When he was done, they didn’t know much about what he’s going to do for Marshall, but students knew a lot more about how the school district works. Several were visibly frustrated, a few of them angry, others nodding their heads in agreement.

And this is the main thing people say about Tokofsky: He’s a passionate maverick, a razor-tongued scrapper, but he can also be kind of a pain.

Voters will be deciding whether they appreciate Tokofsky’s abrasive style.

His supporters tout his opposition to class size increases, the failed $175-million Belmont Learning Complex near downtown and the Los Angeles Unified School District’s controversial purchase of its new headquarters building.

But his critics point out that he couldn’t build enough consensus on the seven-member board to stop those things and charge that Tokofsky is more interested in nitpicking than shaping policy.

Those critics include his three opponents in the 5th District race: preschool programs director Nellie Rios-Parra, state Assembly aide Jose Sigala and community college teacher Maria Lou Calanche. Many political observers expect Tokofsky to face one of them in a runoff.

Among his accomplishments, Tokofsky says, was his proposal last year to use $50 million in construction bond funds for early childhood education and his backing in 1999 of the district’s first office of the inspector general position. But he acknowledges that he is often more a watchdog than policymaker.

“I know people say I should be more of a consensus builder on the board,” he said during several days of recent interviews. “But I don’t think that works.”

Instead, Tokofsky talks about spirited debate as a tonic to an institution that he believes has not met children’s needs.

“When you set the thing on fire -- yes, you get tension and friction,” he said. “But more is going to happen for kids and teachers. You can’t always say exactly what it will be, but more things will happen.”

Tokofsky faces serious demographic and political challenges. He is a white man running against three Latino candidates in a voting district that was reconfigured last year to include a greater proportion of Latino registered voters: 57% now compared with 54% in 1999. His constituency includes some areas familiar to him -- Silver Lake, Atwater Village, East Los Angeles, Mount Washington -- but also new territory such as South Gate and Bell.

And though supported by teachers unions and many civic leaders, he is being targeted for defeat by the Coalition for Kids, a deep-pocketed political action committee formed by former Mayor Richard Riordan and billionaire businessman Eli Broad, who gave Tokofsky lukewarm support in 1999.

The coalition has contributed $121,000 to Rios-Parra’s campaign. Those donations set off intense criticism this week after The Times reported that a memo written by the candidate’s husband, Alvin Parra, sought millions from Broad and the coalition for pet projects in exchange for Rios-Parra’s deciding to get into the race. Alvin Parra said he never sent out the memo.

That flap followed similar revelations in November that Broad had offered $10 million to Occidental College at the same time that he and Riordan encouraged the institution’s president, Ted Mitchell, to run against Tokofsky. Mitchell decided not to.

Though United Teachers-Los Angeles endorsed Tokofsky, the union did so reluctantly after a split vote by the leadership -- and has donated far less to his race than to its favorite candidates in two other school board races.

Tokofsky’s campaign has raised a total of $176,000, including about $50,000 from education unions, according to recent reports. Rios-Parra has raised a total of $150,000; Calanche, $56,000; and Sigala, $83,000.

Tokofsky’s opponents criticize him for being too closely aligned with labor and say he has not done enough to improve schools in his district.

Tokofsky has tried to compensate for any cultural disadvantages he has by speaking nearly flawless Spanish. Until a few weeks ago, anyone reaching the answering machine at his Eagle Rock home got an earful of salsa music. Tokofsky’s campaign trail weaves its way through some of the city’s poorest Latino populations -- and a goodly number of burrito joints.

During a recent candidates forum on a cable access channel, Tokofsky set his opponents’ eyes rolling when he invoked the heroic Bolivian American calculus teacher portrayed in the movie “Stand and Deliver” to describe himself as a “Jaime Escalante with a Russian last name.”

Tokofsky’s opponents have, so far, avoided mentioning the ethnicity issue directly by focusing on their leadership qualities and endorsements.

At the cable TV forum, Calanche emphasized her ability to empathize with constituents as a result of her experiences as a Boyle Heights native, a community outreach director for USC and a consultant to two elementary schools.

“There’s a difference from knowing the language and understanding what people are going through,” she said.

Rios-Parra said she would bring her experience as preschool programs director and mentor teacher in the 7,800-student Lennox School District to bear on L.A. Unified and hopes to make immigrant parents more aware of the bilingual education opportunities open to their children. She also supports expansion of charter schools.

“I would make a point of getting input from constituency,” added Rios-Parra, who said Tokofsky has made some parents feel excluded.

Sigala talks about the endorsements he has received from county Supervisor Gloria Molina and from Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh (D-Los Angeles), a former Tokofsky supporter. Sigala said he wants to work to close the academic achievement gap between rich and poor and make sure new school construction projects get to neighborhoods that need them the most.

All three criticized Tokofsky for not pushing enough for a new Eastside high school by Belvedere Park. “He dropped the ball,” Rios-Parra said.

That project remains under study. Tokofsky blamed Molina for obstructing the school project and said it would eventually go through with some alterations. Tokofsky counts his encyclopedic knowledge of district fiscal and instructional practices among his greatest assets. At board meetings he routinely asks the most questions and requests the most reports.

Board members Genethia Hudley-Hayes and Caprice Young, who are also running for reelection, praised Tokofsky’s knowledge and sincerity but said he is more confrontational than he needs to be.

“I think that David could do more talking before he pulls the pins out of these hand grenades and throws them out there,” Hudley-Hayes said.