Billionaires with Agenda to Privatize Public Schools Buy LAUSD School Board Election for $10 Million - California Teachers Association

Billionaires with Agenda to Privatize Public Schools Buy LAUSD School Board Election for $10 Million - California Teachers Association

In his first interview after declaring victory in the LA Unified school board election, Nick Melvoin vowed to protect parents’ choices in education and to move the district beyond the charter school versus traditional school narrative.

“I would like the first thing we try to tackle to be moving beyond this what we call the school, who governs the school and respect parents’ choices and respect educators’ choices,” he said soon after his acceptance speech Tuesday night as he paused from greeting supporters to talk to LA School Report.

Melvoin delivered an upset victory in Tuesday’s election, unseating a school board president, something that hasn’t happened in at least two decades. Together with Kelly Gonez who won in District 6, they will be part of the strongest reform majority that the board has seen. Melvoin defeated Steve Zimmer in the District 4 race with about 57 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results.

Other top priorities include a unified enrollment system and transparency in the district’s finances and facilities. He said he would work to reform the co-location process in which charter schools share campus space with traditional schools. He also wants to push for more autonomies for district schools like those granted to charter schools.

Melvoin’s brief acceptance speech didn’t include charters, but in the interview afterward he professed his support for independent charter schools, which are publicly funded and run by nonprofit organizations. LA has more charter schools than any other district in the nation, with about 16 percent of LA schoolchildren enrolled in independent charters.

Melvoin had the backing of deep-pocketed philanthropists who have supported charter school growth, including Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, Eli Broad, and former LA Mayor Richard Riordan.