‘Our kids will suffer.’ How the Sacramento teachers union is trying to buy your vote
In recent years, a person could get elected to the school board of the Sacramento City Unified School District while raising less than $2,000. But the California Teacher Association has broken the bank in a naked play to buy four seats – a majority – on a Board of Trustees responsible for setting policy for a district with more than 40,000 Sacramento school kids.
According to campaign finance filings all dated Oct. 5, CTA spent $126,700 in an independent expenditure for Lavinia Gracie Phillips, a social worker who is challenging Jessie Ryan, the current chair of SCUSD’s Board of Trustees.
CTA also made an independent expenditure of $126,700 to Jose Navarro, a state IT specialist who is challenging board member Christina Pritchett. And CTA filed an independent expenditure of $126,700 for Nailah Pope-Harden, who is running for a vacant seat on the board.
Yes, for those counting at home, that’s $380,100 for three school board races. But it doesn’t stop there. The Sacramento City Teachers Association PAC has contributed more than $18,500 in independent expenditures for their board candidates.
SCTA and the Service Employees International Union Local 1021 PAC have also contributed heavily in monetary and non-monetary contributions to the campaigns of Phillips, Navarro and Pope-Harden.
In addition, SCTA PAC and SEIU Local 1021 PAC have contributed nearly 50% of the monetary and non-monetary contributions for Chinua Rhodes, the fourth SCUSD board candidate.
In all, SCTA PAC and SEIU Local 1021 PAC have contributed about $137,000 in monetary and non-monetary contributions to their slate of four candidates who are seeking to unseat two SCUSD board incumbents and claim two open seats on the Sac City Unified School board.
Put all that money together and it’s staggering: CTA, SCTA and SEIU Local 1021 have – so far – dumped more than $530,000 into the coffers of four candidates whose total knowledge of SCUSD’s fiscal problems is rudimentary at best and ignorant at worst.
It’s a sign of the times: In Los Angeles, teachers unions have spent nearly $3 million on school board races. But down there, other outside groups have spent more than $8 million to promote charter schools. We don’t have big charter school spending in Sacramento. Here, CTA and SCTA just seem to want to run the show.
Buy a school board
Instead of compromising with the SCUSD board and its superintendent, Jorge Aguilar, the labor partners of the school district are trying to take over the board instead.
“Outside organizations are pouring money into the school board races to influence our local decision-making process,” said Sacramento City Councilman Jay Schenirer, a former SCUSD board member who was an SCTA target back in the early 2000s.
“Once again, our kids will suffer as the adults fight with each other,” he said. “With kids, we can put them in time out, with adults we just need to call them out.”
Schenirer is right: This needs to be called out for what it is, a takeover attempt of the district leadership by entrenched interests moved by their agenda. There is no negotiation here, no olive branch, no embracing of compromise.
“It is troubling to see that nearly half a million in contributions has been made from local and state teacher labor groups to four of the SCUSD school board candidates,” said Bruce Scheidt, chair of the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber Political Action Committee Board.
“If elected, the CTA-backed candidates would control both sides of the bargaining table,” he said. “That would not be a healthy situation for our schools, and the thousands of students and families it serves.”
I reached out to David Fisher, President of SCTA, but did not hear back. If he or anyone else from SCTA or CTA responds eventually, I will add their comments.
But, frankly, the numbers don’t lie. Led by the local and state teachers union, and another labor partner, these people are trying to buy an election. They are trying to buy an elected board.
They seem to be driven by the idea that if you can’t win by following the rules of collective bargaining, you change the rules. Or in this case, you change the rule arbiters – the elected board members with the fiduciary responsibility to run the district.
Fiscal crisis looms
In this case, SCUSD’s labor partners want to run the district without the legal responsibilities that go with it. They don’t want to sit on the dais at board meetings and answer to parents or to Dave Gordon, the county superintendent of schools, or to the demands of various state officials auditing the districts books.
They want to control the people who sit on the dais at board meetings and they are putting particular emphasis on taking out Ryan, the SCUSD board chair.
Ryan is leading a board trying to stop the practice of kicking the fiscal can down the road and trying to deal with the district’s structural deficit.
Ryan brought Aguilar to the district and has supported his vision of bringing equity to all kids in a district with roughly 73 percent children of color. District achievement is unequal according to race and ethnicity. More than 60% of white students met or exceeded the standard in English. The result for Asian students, 50%; Latinos, 40%; Blacks, 30%.
Sacramento can’t afford to fail these kids and allow the district to fall into insolvency and a state takeover. They can’t afford to have a board majority more concerned about the adults financing them than the kids who need them.
The crisis is real.
Last week, the Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, FCMAT, reported that SCUSD will have a negative cash balance of $24.3 million in May of 2021 and $49 million in June of 2021.
State auditor Elaine Howle also projected a fiscal crisis for SCUSD in 2019.
And yet Fisher, and other SCTA stalwarts, often minimize or cast doubt on the crisis facing the district.
At a recent board meeting, when the district reported a $23 million surplus gained only because no kids are in school due to COVID-19, Fisher said the district should spend that money. Think about it: It’s one-time savings because of the pandemic. It will be gone in a matter of months The district will still face a cash shortfall by May.
And yet?
“With a surplus of $23 million from last school year and a reserve fund that now exceeds $93 million, it’s time to focus on the positive and determine how we can best redirect those resources back to the classroom,” Fisher said to Bee reporter Sawsan Morrar. “Especially now, with the added educational challenges that the pandemic brings, we need to employ more school nurses, lower class sizes, improve special education services and provide help so that our teachers can tailor virtual learning to the needs of each student.”
Candidates as union mouthpieces
And wouldn’t you know? Some of the candidates who are getting thousands upon thousands of dollars from SCTA and CTA agree.
“I don’t trust the district,” Navarro said in a meeting with the Bee Editorial board last week. In that meeting, Navarro did little more than repeat SCTA talking points. He was unaware of the FCMAT study or Howle’s study.
CTA and SCTA are bankrolling Navarro and his lack of interest in the fiscal crisis of the district to the tune of more than $100,000. What does that tell you?
Phillips, who is trying to unseat Ryan, did not show up for her meeting with The Bee editorial board. But some parents who have heard her speak have been alarmed.
“As a voter in (Ryan’s area) and the parent of a student in the district, I’m disappointed that the challenger to our existing Board representative didn’t do her homework before entering the race,” said Sarah Kingsley.
“Ms. Phillips hasn’t shown respect for parents in her comments in forums or questionnaires,” she said. “She skipped an invitation to an interview with the Parents United to Restore Our Schools group on Facebook. Why?”
Said Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg: “I’m proudly endorsing Jessie Ryan and I’ll do all I can to help her get re-elected. In the most difficult of political environments, she maintains her commitment to public education’s North Star; fighting for genuine equity and equal opportunity for all our kids, no matter their race or their neighborhood.”
SCUSD parents and principals had demanded that the teachers union make peace with the district. In the first week of October, the parents have gotten their answer from a teachers union not only not compromising – but escalating the war.
“The teachers have their union to represent them at the table,” said SCUSD parent Alina Cervantes.
“Read their mission statement– they do not serve children, they serve adult labor and that’s great, but who do our kids have?” Cervantes said. “Only the board is accountable to children and families. As we’ve seen, SCTA doesn’t care what parents want...I want a school board that’s responsive to parents, not just the unions who have the money and the power to lobby them. SCUSD has got to work for children first.”
