Charter schools emerge as issue in board runoff

He first ignored legal advice and voted against authorizing a group of charter schools in South Los Angeles. Then two weeks later, he switched sides, acting as the deciding vote both times.

The fallout from the first round was immediate and persisting: Lauritzen's opponent, prosecutor Tamar Galatzan, immediately defined herself as the pro-charter school candidate. The Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Daily News pummeled Lauritzen in editorials, which Galatzan republished in campaign mailers.

The one-term incumbent already was struggling: He finished second to Galatzan in the March primary that narrowed the field to two candidates in District 3, which stretches across the south and west San Fernando Valley.

This contest and the other school board runoff, in an area stretching from Watts to the Harbor area, have citywide ramifications: If Galatzan wins in the Valley and retired school district administrator Richard Vladovic prevails in District 7, then for the first time, board members allied with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will have a majority on the seven-member school board.

The bids by Galatzan and Vladovic are being funded largely through a campaign committee controlled by Villaraigosa. Lauritzen is getting the vast majority of his campaign money from the teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles. UTLA did not endorse either candidate in District 7, where Vladovic is opposed by Neal Kleiner, a retired principal.

The issue of charter schools gained more prominence last week when a majority of teachers at Locke High School in South Los Angeles bucked district management and their union to sign a petition setting in motion the conversion of their academically struggling school to a charter run by Green Dot Public Schools, the same group that was the subject of Lauritzen's flip-flop.

The initial reaction of all runoff candidates to the Locke charter was measured -- all saw some potential for progress while also raising some concerns or wanting to learn more about it. Locke is in District 7.

But it's in the Valley where charter schools have become a defining difference, though not the only one. There's also Galatzan's youthful energy versus Lauritzen's long experience in education. Galatzan, 37, comes at certain issues like the upper-middle-class parent of young children that she is, whereas Lauritzen, 68, sees the world through the eyes of a teacher, which, for decades, he was.