Labor Attorney, Veteran Insider Vie for Open Seat

In a race for the first open seat on the Los Angeles school board in 10 years, a labor union attorney who bills himself as a knowledgeable outsider is squared off against the consummate insider, a longtime education advisor to former Mayor Tom Bradley.

With a nearly 2-1 fund-raising advantage and a network of influential backers gained from her 15 years in the Bradley administration, Valerie Fields is the apparent front-runner in Tuesday’s District 4 runoff.

But Kenneth J. Sackman, an indefatigable school volunteer for the last 12 years, has waged a scrappy campaign promoting his business acumen and characterizing Fields as a retread of the education establishment.

Both candidates have struck similar campaign themes, saying that the troubled Los Angeles Unified School District needs to decentralize and criticizing the district’s handling of plans for a new pricey high school near downtown. Both favor increasing teachers’ salaries.

Differences in style and background have provided the main grist for their campaign rhetoric in a district that stretches from the north San Fernando Valley to Los Angeles International Airport.

Sackman, 46, has highlighted his opponent’s age--71--and her backing by the powerful United Teachers-Los Angeles, which has contributed $55,000 to her campaign. He also mocks her claim to classroom experience, pointing out that she left teaching in 1964.

“I don’t think the people of this city necessarily want one more retired teacher who is totally controlled by UTLA,” Sackman said. “And while Valerie is saying she is not going to be controlled, that is not the way she is being advertised by the union.”

Fields, on the other hand, has accused Sackman of seeking the school post as a steppingstone to higher office, and notes that his experience in public education has been limited primarily to volunteer work.

“I think he has a narrow view of the district,” Fields said.

Fields and Sackman are competing for the seat being vacated by two-term board member Mark Slavkin, who is leaving to work full time at the Getty Education Institute for the Arts.

Fields and Sackman, both Westside residents, got into the runoff by defeating two candidates from the Valley in the April 8 primary.

In two other districts, incumbent board members Julie Korenstein and Victoria Castro won reelection in the primary.

The Fields-Sackman race has generated considerable financing and hefty endorsements. Fields holds the edge in both.

She is endorsed by Mayor Richard Riordan, three of the seven current school board members, seven members of the City Council and four Los Angeles County supervisors.

Campaign financing reports filed May 17 show that Fields has raised $188,168 to Sackman’s $109,898. Other than United Teachers-Los Angeles, her contributors gave mostly $100 to $250, and included numerous small-business people and judges. Her husband, Jerry Fields, is a Superior Court judge.

Sackman received more than two dozen contributions from trade unions, many from $1,000 to $5,000. Smaller contributors included numerous small-business people and attorneys.

Sackman has been endorsed by four Los Angeles-area newspapers, including The Times, in editorials commenting on his passion, vigor and business experience.

A senior partner in the law firm of Gilbert & Sackman, he represents union pension and health plans and advises unions on investments, real estate, construction, personnel and collective bargaining.

As a fervent backer of public schools, Sackman has worked exhaustively at his two daughters’ schools, Castle Heights Elementary, Palms Middle School and now Venice High School.

He said they have received good educations, partly because they entered a magnet program and took honors classes. But he believes the district must provide consistent academic excellence to all students.

To do that, he said, class size must be lowered and teachers’ salaries increased. He proposes to pay for such enhancements by guiding the board toward better financial management.

“As an attorney for labor, I know the issues the board deals with every day. There is nobody on the board that deals with those issues.”

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Fields, whose four children graduated from Los Angeles public schools, taught in Los Angeles elementary schools for 12 years before joining the Bradley administration as his educational and arts advisor and representative to the Westside.

Fields views her candidacy as “an opportunity to save public schools in Los Angeles.” A major component of her goal of restoring academic excellence would be to focus resources on the first three grades and restore art and music programs at all grade levels.

She said she isn’t sure how to pay for such programs, cut in recent decades because of declining budgets, but like Sackman, is banking on better fiscal responsibility.

“If you spend your money more wisely, you save,” she said.