On February 22, the candidates for the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education participated in a debate held here at UCLA. Candidates Allison Holdorff Polhill, Nick Melvoin, Gregory Martayan, and current LAUSD board member representing District 4, Steve Zimmer, will be featured on the March 7 Los Angeles primary municipal election ballot.
The debate was organized by Professor Pedro Noguera and a few students in his Education 162 – Policy Analysis class. During the debate, four main questions were posed to all the candidates followed by a few rapid fire questions that targeted the platform and campaign of a specific candidate. With questions varying from school choice to lack of funding, each candidate had different answers to these issues which reflected their stance on the current state of the district’s public education system.
When it comes to the concern of charter school enrollment in Los Angeles, Melvoin, an attorney and teacher, said that he supports parental choice and the fact that parents have the option of sending their child to a non-profit public school. He also spoke about possibly creating a universal enrollment system for charter schools and mitigating the need to create new schools.
Zimmer, current President of the Governing Board of the LAUSD, expressed that the most dynamic system of choice can be found in Los Angeles. He stated that we have seen an increase in the creation of charter schools and if theses schools aren’t academically beneficial for its students, we should invest more money into regular public schools.
Martayan, L.A. native and advocate for education reform, stated that there are charter school deserts in L.A., especially in minority communities. In affluent communities like Pacific Palisades or Brentwood, parents can sue schools if they don’t meet their child’s needs and in low socioeconomic neighborhood, it is not as easy to get your voice heard over your concerns for your child’s education.
Holdorff Polhill, former board member of Palisades Charter High School, supports all systems of schools and went against Martayan’s claim and stated that charter schools are mainly found in low socioeconomic areas.
When asked how each candidate will make LAUSD fiscally safe, Zimmer said that chronic underfunding in urban cities causes a lack of money and stressed the importance of all members coming together to work on the budget.
Martayan said that the budget needs to be audited and have civilian oversight.
Holdorff Polhill expressed that LAUSD serves over 600,000 students with a $7.6 billion education budget and that the board’s handling of the funds is a crisis.
Melvoin stated that there should be transparency, new sources, and cost saving measures introduced to the handling of the LAUSD budget.
Every candidate was in consensus about addressing the needs of undocumented students inside and outside L.A. classrooms by protecting these students, not giving out their data, and not cooperating with the immigration reform. Holdorff Polhill and Melvoin also suggested increasing parent involvement, dual immersion programs, and ELD classrooms to support these students.
As a young adult in today’s political climate, it is important to stay on top of current events and do your research on every bill, measure, and individual running for a political position. We want to encourage all of our readers to stay informed on social issues occurring in the Los Angeles area and to vote on March 7th!
Photo courtesy of Megan Reusche