Speak UP has conducted interviews with all of the 2020 LAUSD board candidates who responded to our candidate questionnaire for the March 3 primary. This is the first in a series of three interviews with District 7 candidates that will run on our 2020 Election Watch page in coming days. Speak UP has made no endorsements.

Mike Lansing

Mike Lansing, CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Los Angeles Harbor, worked as an educator for more than 17 years and represented District 7 on the LAUSD school board from 1999-2007. He is running for the open seat to replace retiring School Board President Richard Vladovic, representing San Pedro, Wilmington, Harbor City, Lomita, Gardena, Carson, Florence and Watts.

Speak UP: Tell us about yourself and why you are running for school board again.

Mike: Sure. I was born and raised in San Pedro, graduated from San Pedro High School, business finance undergraduate degree, and then earned my teaching credential and Masters in School Administration here at Cal State Dominguez Hills while working full-time. Seventeen plus years as an educator. Middle School Math teacher, athletic director, assistant principal. The last 25 years, I've been the CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Los Angeles Harbor. We've grown from one site when I started to 20 sites now. We focus on the kids that need us the most. My nonprofit experience has been around academic support for mainly students of color and poverty-level students: 95% of my members are children of color, and 85% of them are free and reduced lunch eligible. We built programs, the main one being our College Bound program, which is a college pathway support program. We focus on high school kids because I truly believe we're not putting enough effort and resources to help them finish that first leg of their race, which is high school graduation, and then, what's the plan beyond?

My whole life has been working for children. I'm running because the school district is facing some serious challenges both fiscally and in terms of the amount of resources we're prioritizing for our students, especially students in some of our most disenfranchised communities.

Either we make some really tough and correct decisions over the next three to five years, or the district could find itself bankrupt. We need people on the school board that are willing to stand up for students first and make tough decisions. This is not a stepping stone for another position. I think I was a voice of reason when I was on the school board previously, and I hope to bring that back to what is probably one of the most dysfunctional boards I've seen in a long time. We're talking about charter schools when we have so many other issues that are real issues. We have to change that voice and that dynamic.

Speak UP: Why did you leave the school board in 2007?

Mike: I'd been there two terms. I was doing both jobs, running my Boys and Girls Clubs of the L.A. Harbor. We were starting to really grow and had opportunities to grow it more. I felt after two terms [on the board], we had accomplished a lot. We passed three bonds because schools were crumbling, and there weren't enough schools at that time. We were able to build new schools and upgrade schools. To be blunt, I knew that I could probably make a much bigger impact growing my Boys and Girls Club nonprofit in a day-to-day, year-round way for the same kids that go to LAUSD schools and advocate for them that way.

Interviewer: Can you talk about some of what you have done for those kids?

Mike: We serve 2600 youth a day. I have over 250 employees, youth development professionals that do great work after school, during vacation periods, year-round. We built our model from what I'd seen at the school board. We're not getting enough resources to the kids that need them the most, and we're asking them to compete both within their K-12-education but beyond with kids that have a lot more resources that live right up the hill here in Palos Verdes.

I wanted to build a program that really leveled the playing field for my kids. So, we built our College Bound Program, which is an academic case management-focused model with daily academic support, college-bound centers in all of our club sites, case managers, tutors, volunteers, college visits, SAT prep, scholarships and FAFSA application support, parent education on why college is very attainable for their students, internships and opportunities to look at career pathways aligned with college.

We've just seen it grow and be so successful, and so many of our alumni have graduated from college and come back and are part of our programs. They know what it’s done. I'm finishing my 25th year. I had already given my board notice that I had planned to retire within two years to give them an opportunity to do a transition.

Speak UP: You mentioned the pivotal moment LAUSD is facing with its fiscal crisis. If they don't figure it out, they could get taken over by the county or the state. The board hasn’t done much to address this. What would you do?

Mike: You can't run in a $500 million a year operating deficit for one year let alone two in a row and then looking at a third and thinking that you can just continue to do "status quo." LAUSD will go through all of its reserves. We have to get communities to understand that this is the real issue. If we don't deal with it in ourselves, it's going to get dealt with in a much more draconian way by other people. I understand the inability for some elected officials to deal with fiscal realities. I've been through that once before. But I'm going to be shouting that from the rooftops. Either you deal with realities, or you deal with the ramifications of realities. We have to stop playing games at the board level, where people don't want to acknowledge it or just want to kick it down the lane. We have to get serious, get people in the room, figure out how we're going to balance that budget.

Speak UP: What do you think is the solution?

Mike Lansing with ballerina Misty Copeland, who began taking ballet lessons at the Boys and Girls Club of the Los Angeles Harbor

Mike: You budget it the way I deal with my organization. I budget at my club operating sites first, and then I worry about all of the administrative and other positions. I think you need to do that at the school level, giving these schools much more responsibility and empowerment. They're going to have to take on more responsibilities, because more than likely you're going to have to cut even more administrative staff, but that's the only way I can see keeping students first and academic achievement highest. Budget all of our school sites first at the levels they need to be, and then we work outside that to see what additional support is going to be available centrally or through the local districts.

Speak UP: Birth rates have dropped dramatically over the last decade, and there's no sign of them recovering. So many of our schools are under-enrolled. What kinds of tough choices would you make to address this?

Mike: When you have this kind of a deficit, that makes no fiscal sense. Politically, it makes sense because nobody wants to have to combine or close schools, but you really have no choice in the matter when you [have] these fiscal shortfalls. So that means we're going to probably have to do the same thing that's happening in Pasadena right now. You're going to have to combine schools so that you have the economies of scale to make it reasonable, which will open up schools that you'll still have to maintain. Well, let's move a charter school into that school [to pay for the maintenance] rather than co-locating, and get away from that nonsense of competition on the same school site. Whether or not you do move them in, you're still going to have to merge schools together. It makes no sense to have 100-, 200-seat elementary schools. You're paying way too much in overhead, especially at the top level, administratively, and you're limiting resources to the students.

Speak UP: You mentioned that this is one of the most dysfunctional boards you've seen. How so?

Mike: It's pretty simple. If fiscal challenges are your number one issue, why is your No. 1 thing that we read in the paper only about charter schools? That’s not the real issue. It's not even in the top five issues of the district. They’re not dealing with the two-ton elephant in the room, when you’ve got this little mouse in the corner. Anybody that has done any type of business-related administration knows that your budget has to be your No. 1 focus before you can do anything around student achievement and the rest. It's definitely dysfunctional when you’re going to dig into your reserves two years in a row at $500 million each to help balance the budget, and you don't have any plan beyond that. That's not the way you manage a school district. We have to get serious about addressing the realities of what the school district and our students are facing. We have to be diligent in continuing to talk about those challenges and not letting this whole smokescreen of charter schools be what’s discussed. Those that back the UTLA candidate want to utilize that as a way around what we're really facing, but that's not what we need to do for our students and even for the employees of the district.

Speak UP: So, you think demonizing charters is a way to deflect from challenges like the unfunded pension and healthcare crisis?

Mike: Let's face it, the $500 million a year deficit doesn't even deal with the unfunded mandates for pension and healthcare, especially lifetime healthcare. That's the second lane of the fiscal problems that the district is facing, and it's kind of easy to point over to the right when staring you right in the face are these major hurdles that nobody seems to want to talk about, that they've been kicking down the lane for decades. When I was on the school board before, I was able to get all the bargaining units and the board members down here in San Pedro. We had a two-day conference around the unfunded mandates of pension and healthcare. Of course, after all the great discussion, all the realities, other than myself, nobody wanted to vote for dealing with it. But if you don't...I mean, our educators are underpaid. We can't afford for them to work 30-plus years and not have their pensions. It's just not right, but you have to be fiscally solvent to make that happen.

Speak UP: If the state takes over, they could slash everything, right?

Mike: In the private sector, people lost their pensions when companies have gone bankrupt. Do people really think that the state's just going to take care of all the public employees? I mean, the state doesn't have that kind of money. All the cities and municipalities are behind. We've got to get serious about this. If not, we're really not doing a service to the employees themselves.

Speak UP: Do you think the teachers understand what's truly at stake?

Mike: I think they're being sold a bill of goods. I heard somebody tell me, “Well, the state is going to assure that the pensions are paid.” I go, "What legislation is that? I haven't seen that." I don't think most of our employees understand the realities, and that's kind of scary. I don't believe that the UTLA is honestly communicating to their members.

I was at a gathering of teachers the other day, and one of the teachers was one of my students back in the day. I was talking to him and another teacher about the declining enrollment, and the other teacher said, "Yes, well, when we get these students back from charter schools, we'll be able to make up that difference." And I go, "You're not getting the students back from charter schools." They just renewed 17 out of 17 charter schools. It's the law. So, I don't know who's telling you that you're going to get those numbers back. It's about 125,000 students. They're not coming back unless the school doesn't perform correctly. Don't believe whoever's telling you that's how we are going to balance this budget moving forward.

Speak UP: Were you surprised that UTLA endorsed a candidate in District 7 that has no education background or experience?

Mike: Yes, that truly was surprising that the top education bargaining unit of the whole district doesn't even have an educator as their candidate. No youth development background, no educational background and really no fiscal management background. The only thing you can think of is they bought and paid for their candidate who will do their bidding if she gets on the school board, and that's a pretty sad affair given the challenges we're facing.

Speak UP: Do you support the ballot measures to bring in more school funding?

Mike: I support split roll around Prop 13 and commercial interests. I don't know if it's going to pass, though. EE failed miserably. Split roll, I think, is going to be close. If it does pass, it definitely fills a huge hole on the operating side, but doesn't fill a hole on the pension and medical benefit side. But if it doesn't, then you’ve really got to get serious right away, get people in the room and get everybody on the same side. It's as serious as a heart attack. We've got to make this our No. 1 priority as a school board.

Speak UP: We can't just count on getting more revenue, in your mind?

Mike: No, we have to prepare for the worst-case scenario. Then, if we have a Christmas morning after that, great. It makes it a lot easier. But do it the other way, then you're planning way too late, and the bus has already left the station, and you're not on it.

Speak UP: Is it too late now? Are we at a point where we can fix it still and be saved?

Mike: Well, really, this board needs to be looking at the fiscal realities right now. Yes, they're going to do two years of pulling in $500 million or so each year out of the reserves, but then, in 21-22, you’ve got to be planning for that now. This spring is when they start finalizing the budget for next year, but also they have to go three years out. I hope they're willing to really not worry about your next political position.

Speak UP: How do we increase the effectiveness of teachers and incentivize teachers to teach in our highest-need schools?

Mike: I would be advocating for different compensation levels both in hard-to-staff schools and hard-to-staff subject areas like math and science. We're going to have to incentivize [people] to want to become math and science teachers by raising the compensation level. People say, "Well, it's not fair for the World History or English teacher." Well, it's nothing about fair. We're building a STEM economy that needs kids that have math and science skills they're not getting currently. We better start recruiting the best and the smartest to go into those teaching areas because that's where the future jobs are going to be.

Speak UP: What other policies would you support to help lift student achievement and close achievement gaps?

Mike: When we give the schools more autonomy, we have to give them the opportunity to hire the people that they want and to limit any type of must-place teachers [that] are mandated to be put in schools due to their tenure. Usually, those are individuals who either aren't making the grade at a school, or they've had to move because the enrollment is smaller, and they have fewer spots available, so they have to go to another school. To have a number of those teachers come into a school that's already struggling is not going to help improve student achievement, and dropping 10 or 20 of them all in a school is definitely a problem that we've had in the past in South L.A. and Watts. So, we have to be careful that we don't allow that to continue.

Speak UP: You talk a lot about prioritizing high school. What would you do to help those kids get to college?

Mike: There's not an equal amount of A-G classes available across all schools. We have to get into the 21th century and start looking at online classes for those students that otherwise would not have the opportunity. I'm already talking to people at the community college district about the opportunity to do online classes with high school students so they get dual credits, something that they can take after school, like they do at my Boys and Girls clubs. My members get to take on-site community college classes. They get both college and high school credits but, boy, you can really do a lot more if you had it online. You could do that district-wide.

We have to look at what other resources are necessary to better engage and counsel our high school students. My College Bound program has been successfully doing that for 17 years. It's just putting the resources there to help especially youth of color that don't have the extra resources in terms of knowing the right classes, getting extra support. We've got to put that money into a high school level to make sure that all of our kids have the same pathway opportunities. It's proven that if you put the investment there, you are able to have the outcomes you're looking for. The school district isn't investing enough in high school students, and that's going to be a priority for me.

Speak UP: In your College Bound program, 95% of the kids who have gone through that program over the last five years have attended college?

Mike: Yes, we had a 98%-plus high school graduation rate, and of those graduates, 95% have gone on to college. The vast majority are poverty-level youth, and 95% are children of color so it's not like we're creaming or taking just the upper students.

Speak UP: How do you think the district treats parents?

Mike: I think it's easy to dismiss parents who maybe aren't all that knowledgeable and can easily be disregarded. That's not the way. Parents are the number one influencer of student achievement for their students. We need to make sure we can engage them and make them feel empowered and knowledgeable. I understand there's a lot of challenges around that, given abilities for parents to be involved while just barely making ends meet and finding ways to put food on the table. But you can't dismiss parents. They are truly part of the solution, and we just have to do a better job of embracing them and supporting their efforts to be heard. But we also need their efforts to have higher expectations of their own children and push their own children to work even harder.

Speak UP: The board recently had to be pressured by parents to release student growth data, and three UTLA-backed board members also resisted analyzing data on enrollment patterns to see if we have fair access to magnet schools and to reduce segregation. What are your thoughts on sharing data with the public?

Mike Lansing: I'm not really sure why we're so afraid to share data. We have high accountability for charter schools. We want to have high accountability and know what's happening in our traditional schools. It should be everywhere. Every child and parent needs to know what's happening in his or her school. We have to be held accountable in public education.

Speak UP: You talk on your website about putting kids first. A lot of people say that. What does that actually mean to you?

Mike: I think it means what I've done in my 25 years here. You put the focus on whatever additional opportunities that you can bring to children, and make their needs priority over what some of your bargaining units and some other people want to prioritize. So it's their needs, and everything that they require first, and then we worry about everybody else. It's been a standard in my organization for all the years I've been here and will continue if I'm on the school board again.

Electionwatch

District 7 Candidate Mike Lansing Promises to Bring 'Voice of Reason’ to 'Dysfunctional’ L.A. School Board