School Elections

Someone explain to me: If education is the No. 1 priority of the citizens, why is it that last week's school board elections only drew 11% of the voters? If education is the No. 1 priority of our elected officials, why is it that school districts have to form their own school bond issues for regular building maintenance and upkeep? GARY VELASCO Covina

In Texas, more than 10,000 people joined a recent rally to protest it. In Seattle, high school teachers launched a boycott over it. And in Los Angeles, school board candidates are arguing over it - a debate considered so crucial to the future of education reform that outside donors have poured millions into the campaigns. The growing use of standardized tests to assess students and teachers is sparking a push-back nationwide in what has become one of the greatest divides in educational policy.

City officials are reviewing a proposed ballot initiative that would allow immigrants whose children attend public schools the right to vote in school board elections. "We want to have the right to choose because this affects our daily lives," said permanent resident Miguel Perez, whose daughter attends a local elementary school. Almost one-fifth of all voting-age Californians are noncitizens.

The "matching funds" program in the city of Los Angeles was designed to encourage more competitive political races. Candidates who qualify for the program and who agree to cap their total campaign spending receive a 2-to-1 match for contributions they raise from individual donors in the first round of voting and 4 to 1 in the second. The city has already doled out $5.3 million this year to candidates for city offices under the program; $2.5 million of that amount has gone to candidates for mayor.

Voters in Glendale will choose among candidates for City Council, school board, the Glendale Community College board of trustees, city clerk and city treasurer in a general municipal election today. Ten council candidates, including incumbents Mayor Sheldon S. Baker, Mary Ann Plumley and Richard "Rick" Reyes, are running for three seats on the panel. The school board contest has five candidates competing for three seats. The only incumbent seeking reelection is Jeanne K. Bentley.

Incumbents in the four main school board races in South County face few new challengers, and some incumbents have yet to file with two weeks remaining until the deadline. Prospective candidates have until Aug. 10 to file papers with the county registrar of voters to run in the Nov. 6 election. In districts where no incumbents are seeking reelection, the filing deadline will be extended to Aug. 15.

Maintaining a sound academic program with limited funding is the focus of the Nov. 5 election in the South Pasadena Unified School District. Two incumbents and three other candidates are seeking three seats on the five-member Board of Education. The district traditionally has rated above average on state test scores, even though it receives less money per student than state and county-wide averages.

The "matching funds" program in the city of Los Angeles was designed to encourage more competitive political races. Candidates who qualify for the program and who agree to cap their total campaign spending receive a 2-to-1 match for contributions they raise from individual donors in the first round of voting and 4 to 1 in the second. The city has already doled out $5.3 million this year to candidates for city offices under the program; $2.5 million of that amount has gone to candidates for mayor.

To students attending Chadwick School in 1963, counterculture meant smoking a cigarette or sneaking off the private school's Palos Verdes Peninsula campus. Or launching an alternative newspaper called The Sardine, which was banned after it criticized the administration of Chadwick--then a boarding school--for not letting students wear white Levis. The paper's editor was Jann Wenner, a senior who later would launch another alternative publication, Rolling Stone.

Elections in Los Angeles schools Tuesday had no age restrictions, no citizenship requirements. Voters could cast ballots more than once if they had more than one child or if they dashed to another polling place. Welcome to democracy and school reform -- L.A. Unified-style. A new school board policy, approved in August, allowed groups from inside and outside the Los Angeles Unified School District to bid for control of 12 persistently low-performing campuses and 18 new ones.

Elections in Los Angeles schools Tuesday had no age restrictions, no citizenship requirements. Voters could cast ballots more than once if they had more than one child or if they dashed to another polling place. Welcome to democracy and school reform -- L.A. Unified-style. A new school board policy, approved in August, allowed groups from inside and outside the Los Angeles Unified School District to bid for control of 12 persistently low-performing campuses and 18 new ones.

Although a controversial Anaheim school board appointee resigned last week, community furor over the vacant trustee post continues. The anti-Harald Martin coalition is trying to force an election to fill the post rather than allowing the board to make another appointment.

When voters go to the polls Tuesday to fill the only open seat on the Los Angeles Board of Education, their actions could provide the first hint of how the public feels about Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's proposed takeover of city schools. The four candidates have taken varying positions on whether the mayor should run the nation's second-largest school district.

Testing state law for the second time this year, San Francisco city leaders approved a controversial ballot proposal Tuesday that could allow noncitizens to vote in school board elections. The proposal, the first in the state but not the nation, would permit any adult with a child in public school -- parent, guardian or caretaker -- to vote regardless of citizenship status. Backers of the measure acknowledged that it probably would face legal challenges since state law limits voting to citizens.

Armed with the California Voting Rights Act of 1991, Latino voters in one San Joaquin Valley farm town have sued their local high school district, alleging that the way elections are structured keeps Latino candidates from winning. As in the majority of state school districts, voters in Hanford elect school board members from the community at large, rather than from districts within the city. The suit, filed Thursday, asserts that the system serves to dilute the Latino voting bloc.

City officials are reviewing a proposed ballot initiative that would allow immigrants whose children attend public schools the right to vote in school board elections. "We want to have the right to choose because this affects our daily lives," said permanent resident Miguel Perez, whose daughter attends a local elementary school. Almost one-fifth of all voting-age Californians are noncitizens.

Asked to shed $7 million to balance its budget, the Alhambra School District chose the obvious: It suggested trimming its excess. But as school systems across the state have discovered as they race to cut budgets, the Alhambra district learned that defining excess isn't easy. In this case, the debate involves some of the district's brightest students, mainly those involved in Alhambra High School's prized biomedical research program.

In Buena Park, voters are being asked to kick in for a new police station. In Fullerton, residents are deciding whether they want their city clerk to be elected or appointed. In Irvine, voters are considering whether to repeal a business utility tax. But those measures, and the assortment of others to be decided in the Nov.