Centinela Valley: Poster Child for Abolition of School Boards

A progressive invention, public district school boards (in theory) would allow respected (?) members of the community to represent the societal (read, public) interests of the voting community. Numerous accounts have exposed the folly, failure, and corruption of school boards (Los Angeles Unified, NYC) but a LA working-class suburban school districts, Centinela Valley Union High School District, displays everything wrong with the school boards in and of themselves.

Every two years, a slate of candidates run for school board, citing concerns about the procedures and values of their local school. Any problems which community shareholders discovered, they could address to the leaders, and in turn the board would respond and reform the school district for the better.

The ideal is unreal.

Let’s start with the political fiction that school boards represent their community. Schools serve students, yet students are required to attend public school, and they do not vote. Where’s the representation for them?

The appalling voter apathy so apparent in school board races further attests to poor representation. Often held during off-year elections, school board races attract at best 10-15% voter turnout. The consequences for such pathetic voter turnout include not only unaccountable or unreliable leaders, or comfortable incumbents, but the rising power of dedicated, focused interest groups who can by school board elections and influence members to support policies, hire staff, and vote on motions as they please.

With the infiltration of these interests, coupled with voter apathy and the disjunction between the responsibilities of the school board with the individuals whom they are elected to represent and regard,

Instead of overseeing the daily procedures and decision-making of the school officials, members invest their prior experience, apart from a researched regard for the opinions and experiences of teachers ands school staff. Preferring to institute policies which promote their ideology while ignoring the better ideas of simple solutions, school boards can create more problems instead of what the intended to solve.

"Overpaid" Jose Fernandez

Even the best of intentions go awry, as in Los Angeles Unified, where the school board installed a new, comprehensive payroll system in 2007,which inadvertently docked thousands of teachers their pay, then cost the district hundreds of millions in repairs. Following the 2013 rollout of LAUSD’s Ipad program, equipment abuses and losses reaped more costs than benefits.

Instead of promoting oversight, school boards have become unsightly stomping grounds for vain retirees or ambitious officer-seekers. Instead of representing the public interest, school boards reflect the self-interest of the members or the will of special interests with more money and combined ambition than busy parents, powerless students, and uninformed community leaders.

Democracy without democratic values has created an undemocratic system, in which the will of the minority affects the vast majority of residents in a school district, and oftentimes residents shrug their shoulders following revelations of waste, fraud, and corruption in their local school board:

“There’s nothing I can do about it.”

In a way, this sentiment is sentient, since one voter alone cannot sway any election. Yet a massive attitude of “There’s nothing I can do” allows the diligent minority of special interests – unions, contractors, corporate interests – to do just what they want.

Case in point for the failure of school districts: Centinela Valley Union High School District (CVUHSD) of Lawndale, CA (Suburb of LA), composed of three high schools and one continuation school. Maximum enrollment: 6000-7,000  students.

The predominantly Latino, working-class suburbs of Lawndale, Hawthorne, and Lennox end their kids through one of four feeder Elementary districts, whose test scores and academic culture often exceed the high school. Voter turnout hovers around 11%.

In the last two elections, TELACU construction company set up a PAC, Citizens for Better Schools, to promote candidates to the school board, who in turn joined with a recently-installed superintendent, Jose Fernandez, to raise his compensation and award multi-million dollar construction contracts to TELACU.

The superintendent oversaw massive teacher transfers and layoffs. A compliant school board awarded him hundred-thousand dollar salary increases, and a near-million dollar home loan (despite Fernandez’ prior bankruptcy filings). “Overpaid” under-describes Superintendent Fernandez.

 Students protested the sudden transfer of teachers. The school board didn’t care. Paying attention to a contractor who paid for their election, the school board financed multi-million dollar construction contracts, yet closed the adult school and laid off teachers. Beyond financing junkets to Las Vegas and Washington DC, the superintendent took in a record $660,000 salary in 2013, including pensions-spiking “air time”.

If there is any poster child of the inherent dysfunction of school boards unchecked, look no further than Centinela Valley. After years of protracted frustration with lingering corruption and stagnant test scores, one elementary district broke away from CV. Following revelations of Fernandez’ outrageous pay, the Daily Breeze reported on the school board shenanigans, pay-for-play elections, and offensive emoluments to a lavish, live-it-up superintendent representing a working-class school district.

The district should not be called Centinela, according to critics, but Centi-Bell-a, after the LA Times expose of greedy public corruption against an uninformed voting community.

More importantly, CV is an argument for abolishing school boards and institute school choice for better fiscal management and accountability.