Teacher Union Officials Consolidate Power after Los Angeles Strike
Teacher union officials are attempting to consolidate the gains they made from the strike by manning the school board with their bought-and-paid-for candidates like Jackie Goldberg. Goldberg already has almost half of the votes in a special election for a new school board member post-strike, but school board candidates must have more than 50% of the vote to win. The candidate told Swaak in February one of the main reasons she is running again is to keep charter school advocates from sitting on the board. Taylor Swaak has the story in the74million.org.
Goldberg, a former school board member and vocal charter critic who was a prominent face of the January teacher strike, received 48.26 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s Board District 5 election. In a May 14 runoff, she would likely face either Huntington Park councilwoman Graciela Ortíz, who’s claimed 13.3 percent of the vote so far, or former L.A. City official and L.A. Unified parent Heather Repenning, who trails Ortíz by 53 votes.
One of the 10 candidates would have to receive more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff in the predominantly Latino board district, also known as BD5.