Something for everyone

It seems the race for CD 2 is shaping up to become an interesting and closely watched election for more than just those residing within its boundaries.

Just the enormity (in quantity of candidates -- 10 listed on the CD 2 Election blog) and scale (level of political activity) of those seeking the job: professional politicians and grassroots activists both appear (and with the annoucement by Louis Pugliese that he would be withdrawing his name from the race ... disappeared) from the September 22nd ballot.

There's not only the interest by those living within the Council District 2 proper, but those with other vested interests in the outcome as well.

For some of us who fall into the latter category, the biggest question forming between now and Sept. 22 is what will happen with the school board District 3 seat should Tamar Galatzan be elected to the council?

With Mr. Pugliese out of the running, rumor has it that perhaps if Ms. Galatzan successfully campaigns for the council seat vacated by Wendy Greuel, Mr. Pugliese might be easily pursuaded to run for Tamar's vacated school board seat, and could actually win it.

All this potential musical chairs playing makes my head spin...

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While we were all busy this week waiting to see who indeed would pass the City Clerk's muster and get approval to be added to the ballot -- in another part of the City Hall, another political non-drama was playing itself out in the Op-Ed pages of the Los Angeles Times, penned supposedly, by none other than Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Himself.

On Aug. 25, the Los Angeles Board of Education will have the opportunity to take the first real step toward reforming our broken system and transforming our schools. Board member Yolie Flores Aguilar has proposed a measure that would fundamentally change the way we run our schools, giving organizations outside the Los Angeles Unified School District--charter school groups, teacher collaboratives and others -- the chance to compete to operate new campuses set to open in fall 2010.

Instead of merely handing these campuses over to the district, the school board would require prospective school operators to submit a detailed plan on how they would run the new school. The plans would be judged based on the operator's past record of success, the inclusion of metrics for measuring that success and the educational vision for the new school. The superintendent would evaluate each plan and recommend to the board the operator with the superior plan to run the school.

The Twitterverse was quick to respond:

@4LAKids: VILLARAIGOSA ADVOCATES SELLING YOUR CHILD'S LAUSD EDUCATION TO WHOEVER'S GOT THE 'SUPERIOR' PLAN www.bit.ly/140mjC

@CutsHurtKids: @villaraigosa Hey Mr Mayor: chillax on saying who's right or "wrong". We seem to recall YOU sir got an 'F' grade by YOUR Partnership schools

@SquashBlossom RT @LAist : @Villaraigosa @HamiltonSarah Semantics of winning bid to "operate" still boil down to passing the buck

Linday William-Ross at LAist also responded:

If it's broke, fix it, right? Only what happens when the people who are supposed to fix it are the ones who broke it in the first place? And they happened to have run out of the money it's going to likely take to do the fixing? Easy solution: Sell management of the school(s) to the highest--well, "superior"--bidder.

The Mayor apparently did not agree:

@villaraigosa: RT @hamiltonsarah: @LAist Your headline badly misleads. Reforming a broken system isn't "selling your child’s education”http://bit.ly/2ZxWKX

More hollabacks: @CutsHurtKids: @villaraigosa We applaud @LAist & @SquashBlossom for daring to give a critical analysis & refusing to be a PR doormat for privatization

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After all the analyzing and finger pointing is done for the day, one other aspect of this Op-Ed piece becomes glaringly clear and in focus to others: Joseph you-know-who tells me that only Sue Horton could accept a piece from a sitting Mayor on schools in the hopes of swaying the local school board on an issue banal enough that it might even appear on her editorial page.

I suppose the Mayor's Op-Ed piece had enough of a little bit of everything to anger, annoy and amuse almost everyone.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and our Mighty Fallen Fishwraps -- The Great Uniters.