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Four seats on the LA Unified School District Board will be voted on tomorrow, in the odd-numbered 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th districts. This year’s school board race is a contest between who can raise more money – Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his Coalition for School Reform, or the Teacher’s Union, UTLA, with a membership of about 45,000 teachers. Mirroring national elections, the big bucks behind this year’s school board races are coming from independent donors. So far, the Villaraigosa-backed Coalition for School Reform, which describes itself as “an alliance of business leaders, parents and educators,” has outspent the teacher’s union in all but one race. Hillel Aron at KCET found that as of January the Coalition had raised over $1 million dollars and in Aron’s own words most of that had come from “rich people.” Billionaire and prominent LA philanthropist Eli Broad contributed $150,000 to the Coalition; a former CEO of the Spanish language broadcaster Univision gave $250,000, and a handful of real estate developers have given at least $100,000 combined. Meanwhile, UTLA has invested its dollars in two candidates in the District 5 and 7 races who recently had to withdraw due to minor scandals supposedly involving past criminal activity. The Coalition candidates look poised to easily take three of the four seats.

GUEST: Howard Blume, LA Times Reporter and co-host of Deadline LA with Barbara Osborn which airs Mondays at 2:30 pm on KPFK

Tune in Monday March 7th for an hour-long election special by Deadline LA at 2 pm.

LAUSD District map:
http://notebook.lausd.net/pls/ptl/docs/PAGE/CA_LAUSD/LAUSDNET/ABOUT_US/MAPS/2009-10%20LOCAL%20DISTRICTS%20ALL%20%288-5X11%29.PDF