Education Week - February 27, 2013 - 15

27.3

aa
asian

4.2

EDUCATION WEEK

District
1

latino
white
other

29.3

Altadena

latino

17.1

35.5

white
other

8.3
13.2

white
other

latino

70.1

District
3

7.4

District
2*

Note: Numbers may not add up to
100 because of rounding.

14.9

asian
latino

36.7

aa Sierra Madre

District
4*

asian
latino

District
latino
6*

19.5

white
other

latino

14.6

white
other

District
7

16.9

asian
latino
white
other

19.4

6.9

15.2

3.3

asian

14.8

38.9

Pasadena

asian

10.6

8.2

other

5.3

SOURCES: U.S. Census Bureau;
local voter redistricting task force

white

10.6

www.edweek.org

POPULATION
n African-American
n Asian
n Latino
n White

5.9

40.5

37.9

asian

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

SUBDISTRICT VOTING POPULATION
aa

61.8

District
5

white

OVERALL
SCHOOL
DISTRICT
VOTING
POPULATION

other

68.7
54.5

50%

* No seats up for election this year.

Other

5.6 3.2

13.7

asian
population is 52 percent Latino, 26
percent white, 8.6 percent Asian,
and 6.5 percent black.)
“I have focused on school boards
because those cases involve not
only the political empowerment of
the minority community, but in a
very direct way, the quality of public education,” Mr. Rubin said.
“My concern is for the community and whether electoral barriers prevent it from electing candidates of its choice,” he said. “Those
candidates may not necessarily be
of the same race or ethnicity as
the community that elected them
so long as they reflect the interests of that community.”

Federal Recourse
California’s Voting Rights Act is
unique, but communities in other
states have used the federal Voting Rights Act to force changes in
how they elect local bodies, including school boards.
Section 2 of the federal law
prohibits voting practices or procedures that intentionally or unintentionally discriminate on the
basis of race, color, or language;
Section 5 requires specified states,
communities, and jurisdictions
with histories of past voting infractions—mostly in the South—
to receive U.S. Department of
Justice approval before making
election changes. A challenge to
the constitutionality of Section 5
is now before the U.S. Supreme
Court.
Federal cases are harder to
bring than California cases, said
Nancy Abudu, a senior staff counsel at the national American
Civil Liberties Union. Section 2
cases can take years to settle or
decide, she said, and plaintiffs
have more to prove: Communities

have to show that racially polarized voting takes place, and that
redistricting would remedy it by
drawing subdistricts that are majority-minority.
The California law does not have
the second requirement.
Creating more diverse elected
bodies does not end at shifting
election formats, many say. Minority candidates still need to run,
and voters still need to show up at
the polls to vote for them, a process that can take time.
Those factors were at play in
last November’s school board election in Escondido, in Southern
California. Worried about the risk
of a lawsuit, both school districts
in the city applied for waivers to
switch from at-large to trustee
elections.
The local aclu then helped
launch a districtwide civic-engagement and outreach project to get
more Latino parents participating in community meetings where
new boundaries were drawn, get
them registered, and encourage
them to vote.
The election resulted in the first
Latino member ever on the elementary district board, in a city
where 49 percent of residents and
70 percent of the 18,000-student
school district are Latino. Board
member Jose Fragozo had run
unsuccessfully at-large in 2006,
2008, and 2010. After the switch
to the new election system, Mr.
Fragozo moved to run in a new
trustee area with a high percentage of Latino voters and won.
“You can’t change the way you
run elections in a vacuum,” said
Lori Shellenberger, the civic-engagement lawyer with the aclu
of San Diego. “Most residents do
not know the difference between
at-large versus [subdistrict] elec-

tions, so you have to empower
the community with information
latino
about what these elections mean,
especially in communities that
have been marginalized in the
white
past.”

Neighborhood Issues

16.9

other

The California law is influencing
not just who is elected to school
boards, but also the campaign
process itself.
After a few hours of knocking
on doors in Pasadena, Mr. Ayala
rushes to a local church to attend an election forum, where
he answers questions on district
financial accountability and the
expulsions of minority students,
among other questions. The night
before, at a neighborhood-association forum with his opponent, Mr.
Phelps, he fielded questions about
a shuttered neighborhood school
and how he would keep the association updated on board matters
if elected.
The creation of electoral districts
means board members will have
to keep abreast of and accountable
for both neighborhood issues that
affect their blocs of voters in addition to those that affect voters as
a whole. For example, some 600
students from the regular public
schools left last year, many moving to private or charter schools.
To new Pasadena board candidate Stella Murga, those outlying
issues are what influenced her to
run against the incumbent, Elizabeth Pomeroy, for a seat in the
new District 5. Ms. Murga, a Latina who runs a nonprofit group
that helps prepare low-income
students for college and careers,
said she never would have been
able to run under the old system
because there were too many vot-

PASADENA DISTRICT
ENROLLMENT
ALSO:
Total Enrollment: 18,650
English-Learners: 20.6%
Free/Reduced Meals: 68%
Special Education: 11.7%

ers to reach and
too much cam60.6%
paign money to raise.
(Estimates suggest
the electoral switch will
save candidates $200,000 total
in campaign costs each election.)
Ms. Murga has been walking
District 5 on weekends and, with
the help of volunteers, phoning
voters at home.
On a recent, sunny Saturday, she
takes several hours going door to
door after a morning at the local
farmers’ market, where she handed
out fliers. Many people aren’t home,
so she handwrites notes on their
fliers—“Sorry I missed you”—and
slips them under doormats and inside letter boxes.
If she loses, she doesn’t know if
she’ll try again.
“Last election, my opponent was
unopposed, and that would have
happened again this time if I
hadn’t decided to run,” Ms. Murga
says, smiling about the face-off
the local press has predicted will
be close. “In the end, I’ll know I
gave it my best shot, and I’m glad
people have heard what I have to
say. My candidacy is giving people
a choice; that’s what democracy is
all about.”
Coverage of leadership, expanded
learning time, and arts learning
is supported in part by a grant
from The Wallace Foundation,
at www.wallacefoundation.org.

NEW DIRECTION
The Pasadena Unified
school system has switched
from electing school board
members districtwide to
electing them from within
seven subdistricts. The goal
is to give minority voters
a greater chance of having
their voices heard.
The first election under
the new system takes
place next week.

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Education Week - February 27, 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - February 27, 2013