A teachers union endorsement has been a powerful, but not invincible, force in Los Angeles school board elections.
An endorsement from United Teachers Los Angeles typically brings money and the people-power of 35,000 members. Since January, educators dressed in the union's signature red, armed with stacks of door-hangers, have canvassed the city, knocking on doors every weekend in competitive districts.
Echo Park elementary school educators Betsy Ures and Emily Ponce joined more than a hundred fellow members at the union’s headquarters near Koreatown last month to spread the word about the union-backed candidate in Board District 5, Karla Griego.
“I actually really enjoy knocking doors, talking to regular working people and hearing about their experiences with LAUSD,” Ures said.
Candidates endorsed by UTLA have a significant edge — since 2015, 63% have won their school board races.
And when an endorsed candidate missteps, it also draws scrutiny to the union. That was the case last week when UTLA’s choice for Board District 1, Kahllid Al-Alim, was revealed to have made antisemitic remarks online.
Learn about all 16 candidates running the LAUSD's four board races in our Voter Game Plan.
Ures and Ponce started teaching at the school around the same time, went on strike together in 2019, and navigated remote learning during the early years of the pandemic.
“I don't think people realize how much you know children are dealing with,” Ponce said.
For example, more Los Angeles families are being evicted than before the pandemic. A higher rate of students are reporting persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. An estimated 32,000 California youth experienced the death of a parent or caregiver from COVID-19.
Ures and Ponce’s pitch for Griego as the “teacher’s choice” included her almost 20 years as a special education teacher — she would be the first such educator on the board — and that she’s the parent of a teenage student.
“She's a really great advocate for teachers and for students,” Ponce said at one door.
This year, the union endorsed candidates in three of LAUSD’s four open races.
Griego is one of four candidates in District 5. The others are Bell mayor and school board staffer Fidencio Joel Gallardo, parent and retired teacher Victorio R. Gutierrez and educator and Huntington Park city councilmember Graciela Ortiz.
Ortiz has been removed from her LAUSD job pending the outcome of a confidential investigation related to a civil lawsuit.
UTLA’s endorsement process takes weeks, if not months to complete. In the fall, an expanded endorsement team of members reviewed research compiled by a political consultant, interviewed candidates and submitted its recommendations to the union’s political action council, board of directors, and house of representatives who all vote on the endorsements.
We need someone on the board who has a movement behind them.
UTLA chose to endorse candidates that are closely aligned with its platform, which in recent years has included workforce issues like teacher salaries and class sizes, but also housing, adding more green space to campuses, defunding school police and creating restorative justice programs.
One of the school board’s primary responsibilities is to determine how to allocate an annual operating budget of $9 billion.
“The [district] budget reflects the values of our school district and the school board members determine that budget,” Ures said. “It's not just like we need someone on the board with our values in mind. It's also, we need someone on the board, who has a movement behind them, who can help inform the candidates once they become members.”
UTLA allies regained majority control of the LAUSD board in 2022 after charter advocates tipped the scales in favor of the independently run, publicly funded schools in 2017.
LAUSD elections broke spending records in 2017; the campaigns and outside fundraisers spent $17 million in support of — and opposition to— candidates for three board seats. Though overall spending dipped in 2022, LAUSD races continue to attract millions of dollars from outside funders, an anomaly in school political races.
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“The thing about philanthropists and corporate interests is that the focus of what issues they get excited about changes from election to election,” said Michael Hartney, a political scientist and Hoover fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. “Teachers unions are perennially powerful because they are largely focused on the education issue.”
Hartney evaluated California, New York and Florida school board elections between 1995 and 2020 and found union-backed candidates won 7 out of 10 seats.
Educators make the case that better working conditions for teachers create better learning conditions for students. The message seems to work most of the time.
“Voters perceived that the union-backed candidate would do a better job than the non-union-backed candidate,” Hartney said of a study that asked people to evaluate a fictitious match up between two candidates, one with and one without teachers’ endorsement.
Whether electing educators themselves — or candidates who’ve won their endorsement — makes a difference on academic outcomes is harder to determine.
One study based in California found when an educator serves on the school board, teacher salaries rise and charter school enrollment declines. Average test scores and high school graduation rates do not change.
There are also instances we can point to where the union is, by necessity, going to have to fight for things that are good for school employees, that may not be in the best interest of all students.
Universally, unions seek to improve the working conditions of its members.
“That may benefit students, but there are also instances we can point to where the union is, by necessity, going to have to fight for things that are good for school employees that may not be in the best interest of all students,” Hartney said.
Hartney pointed to the first years of the pandemic when teachers unions’, including UTLA, pushed back on plans to reopen schools to in-person learning. Student attendance, reading, and math test scores have yet to rebound, though some research shows states where schools reopened earlier didn’t have significantly higher academic outcomes.
Primary elections typically have a lower turnout than the general election and as of Feb. 24, 7% of California voters had returned their ballots.
Hartney said when turnout is low, teachers, their families, and others in their network can sway the election outcome.
“Parents have an incentive to vote and participate in school board elections, but their interest really declines after their kids graduate from the local schools and move on,” Hartney said.
Many of the people teachers Ures and Ponce talked to in Koreatown readily admitted they had little awareness of the upcoming school board election, but there were exceptions.
Just because you don't have the kids in the room does not mean that that generation won't affect your vote, your welfare, their welfare, your kids welfare.
“I actually moved here after my school years, but I'd like to at least stay up in the local,” said Jerin Haynes.
Haynes said he remembered getting lost in the shuffle of overcrowded classrooms growing up and wants to see Black and brown students have access to books that reflect their identities.
“Just because you don't have the kids in the room does not mean that that generation won't affect your vote, your welfare, their welfare, your kids welfare,” Haynes said. “It's all connected. It's all community. It's all network. So you have to literally try and it starts by one vote.”
In mid-February, screenshots alleging Board District 1 Candidate Kahllid Al-Alim liked dozens of anti-semitic and sexually explicit posts from private, pre-campaign social media accounts began circulating online.
In the post that sparked the most backlash, Al-Alim wrote that an antisemitic and academically debunked book should be made “mandatory” reading for students in LAUSD schools serving high-need and Black students.
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“What he is suggesting doesn't align with union values,” said Educators Caucus for Israel Chair Amy Leserman. “What he is suggesting does not align with district values and somebody who has these values should not be making decisions about students. Period.”
The caucus is made up of educators and advocates, and amplified screenshots of Al-Alim’s social media activity. Its members have called on Al-Alim to quit the race.
UTLA suspended its campaign for Al-Alim after that social media activity resurfaced last week. A final vote to rescind the union’s endorsement is scheduled for Monday, March 4, one day before the primary election. It’s unclear whether the controversy will doom Al-Alim’s campaign and overshadow the union’s other endorsements.
Al-Alim initially apologized in a brief three-paragraph statement on his campaign website Feb. 20 and expanded his response in a video published online Sunday.
“I am sorry for amplifying these dangerous ideas,” Al-Alim said. “I understand that doing so has harmed people and undermined the vital collective work we are doing to advance justice for all people, expand educational funding in LAUSD, and protect public schools.”
Al-Alim agreed to be available to talk with parents, educators, and community members, and to participate in training about countering antisemitism.
Assembly Democratic Caucus Chair Rick Chavez Zbur, LAUSD Board President Jackie Goldberg and Board Member Rocío Rivas are among those who have called for the longtime community organizer to withdraw from the race. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor announced on Feb. 23 that it would no longer campaign for Al-Alim and that its members will discuss whether to withdraw the endorsement completely.
“As a Jewish educator, I was really hurt to see some of the antisemitic content on his Twitter posts,” said Echo Park first grade teacher Hannah Day. “Antisemitism has no place in our movement for the schools that L.A. students deserve or any movement for social, racial, or economic justice. Nor does any other form of racism or discrimination.”
Day is a member of UTLA’s expanded endorsement team and said she supported suspending the campaign while union members decide how to move forward, but that she still supports Al-Alim’s candidacy.
“The only way we're ever going to fight off privatization, build the schools our students deserve, is if we…address these harmful ideologies within our movement and outside in the world, and work together in solidarity with one another,” Day said.
Before the news about the posts broke, teachers unions, including UTLA, had already spent $650,000 supporting Al-Alim’s candidacy.
Charter school advocates and other outside donors spent $377,000 to support Didi Watts, a longtime educator and chief of staff for current LAUSD Board Member Tanya Ortiz Franklin.
We won’t know definitively how the late development shaped last-minute fundraising or opposition ads until after the primary.
At least one candidate referenced the controversy in an emailed campaign update. “I stand against discrimination in any form that would deny any of our students access to a high quality education,” wrote Sherlett Hendy Newbill, who’s been endorsed by four sitting board members. “That's why we have to keep Kahllid Al-Alim off the school board and away from our children.”
One outstanding question is whether— or how— UTLA was unaware of Al-Alim’s social media activity.
Day said a review of the candidates’ social media was not included in the research provided to the union’s expanded endorsement team.
“I think this was an oversight and I think we're learning from this experience,” Day said.
