After New York billionaire Michael Bloomberg spent half a million dollars to kick Steve Zimmer off the Los Angeles School Board in 2013, Zimmer picked up the phone. In a departure from his self-described “conflict averse” nature, Zimmer wanted to pitch his views of collaborative school reform to the self-proclaimed “education mayor.”
The staffer screening the call told Zimmer that Bloomberg didn’t know who he was. Sure he does, Zimmer explained. He just spent half a million dollars to beat me.
With the help of United Teachers Los Angeles and a small army of grassroots activists, the community rebelled against the massive infusions of outside cash as an attack on local control of the schools, and Zimmer prevailed.
That was four years ago. Last week, in the most expensive school board race in history, Zimmer lost to a candidate Nick Melvoin who was backed by the billionaires.
Los Angeles is the biggest school district in the country with an elected school board. Outside “education reformers”—who seek to dismantle the public school system in order to promote a for-profit model—have had a tough time influencing this district. But Zimmer’s defeat can provide lessons for everyone who wants to protect the public schools.
Of the seven school board seats, none encompasses as diverse a range of communities as the seat held by Steve Zimmer for the last eight years, Board District 4.
Last election, Zimmer won with the support of the west side suburbs, a mostly well-off area, where the largest number of consistent voters live, and where activists have been busy defending public schools.
This election, however, charter backers set up their own structure to organize parents, and began pounding the pavement promoting Melvoin.
Melvoin also tapped into frustration with austerity plans held over from the recession, while at the same time slamming Zimmer for fiscal mismanagement. California ranks near last in per pupil funding, thanks to a decades-old property tax cap that has devastated school funding throughout the state.
Although Zimmer conceded that Melvoin’s campaign was well focused, he believes money prevailed.
”The most important thing that money did was to enable them to win an election without having to debate any of the issues,” he said.
It might be more accurate to say that their money allowed them to choose the issues to debate.
Melvoin’s campaign refrain was, “Parents want good schools, whether they’re traditional, pilot, magnet or charter.”
That seemed to resonate, but it obscured an agenda Melvoin’s backers have spent years and millions of dollars advancing, one that Trump's education secretary Betsy DeVos shares: pushing a market-based system of “school choice” to replace democratically governed public schools where everyone has a stake.
Melvoin denies that this is his real agenda.
“I made it very clear that I was not a shill for the charter movement,” Melvoin told me a week after the election. “I think the reason the philanthropists have been investing in charters is that they see it as a more efficient route to reform.”
“They knew that if it was really about charter schools, they would lose,” Zimmer said. That’s why Melvoin soft-pedaled the issue, in his opinion. When it comes to charters: “They don’t have a mandate.”
“I made it very clear that I was not a shill for the charter movement.”
Still, a fourteen-point margin of defeat for an incumbent school board president is likely to be interpreted as a mandate for something.
As one LAUSD school administrator told me, “This is an absolute rebuke of LAUSD leadership. Of the board, of the district, of the union. Voters want better schools.”
Zimmer was constantly on the defensive. He fessed up to taking money from wealthier parts of the district to fund poorer parts. As a constituent who closely followed Zimmer’s board tenure, I had never heard him explain it in zero sum terms. To the contrary, he usually told a story of “all for one and one for all.” Now, he was almost asking voters to sacrifice their own kids’ education for others.
Melvoin’s promise essentially amounted to making Los Angeles schools great again. Melvoin was endorsed by Obama’s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. Lost on most voters were subtleties like Duncan’s education reforms being so unpopular that Congressional Democrats agreed to strip the Education Secretary’s post of most of its power.
Gentrification also played a role. In the neighborhood called Silicon Beach, because so many tech companies now call it home, L.A.’s west side seemed tailor-made to receive Melvoin’s message of easy fixes unencumbered by old-fashioned ideas like labor unions. Zimmer’s campaign was run by a teachers union organizer. To voters, Zimmer’s explanation that “labor peace” was essential to moving schools forward seemed beside the point. This disconnect culminated in his election night event, which was like a labor rally replete with union chants. In the land of Snapchat, Google, and Hulu bikes, they were speaking a foreign language.
There were other moves that dumbfounded voters. The union mailed a letter telling voters they would check on whether they had voted, reinforcing Melvoin’s point that the union was pushing parents around.
Zimmer might have lacked comparable resources to share his story, but it seems his version for voters was never crafted at all. He mostly played defense. In debates, he explained how supportive he was of charters and choice, clouding his image as public school champion.
“The progressive case for public education was never made,” Josh Leibner, National Board Certified Teacher, told me.
That is the biggest disappointment of all.