Why LAUSD Incumbents Keep Winning — Even When They Fail

“Meet the new boss,

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Same as the old boss.”

- The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent Alberto Carvalho's resignation last month drove home how secure the status quo’s hold is on Los Angeles schools. For almost four months, the school board has allowed Carvalho to continue receiving his $440,000 annual salary, even as he has been under investigation by federal law enforcement, allegedly for his connections to the failed AI chatbot company AllHere.

When federal agents raided Carvalho's home, district offices, and property in Florida on February 25, 2026, it threatened to upend the ongoing school board elections. After all, the current board, including the three incumbents running for re‑election, had voted unanimously just a few months earlier to extend the superintendent's contract without seeking public input.

While the raid has not yet resulted in any arrests, the spectacle of federal agents carrying away boxes of potential evidence casts doubt on the strength of the board's oversight. How deeply had board members examined Carvalho’s relationship with AllHere when the superintendent brought them a $6 million contract with the company? When AllHere went bankrupt, jeopardizing the district’s investment, did they investigate why the superintendent had not warned them of the risk? Had the contract included appropriate safeguards?

These were all questions tailor‑made for the campaign trail. However, this form of accountability requires challengers willing to confront the status quo, and this race had very few of them. Kelly Gonez received 100% of the vote on Election Day because no one successfully qualified to run against her. Nick Melvoin and Dr. Rocio Rivas each drew a single challenger, ensuring their races would be decided in the primary.

Melvoin and Gonez had both performed poorly in the 2022 election cycle. When Melvoin sought a promotion to the halls of Congress, voters rejected him decisively. With blood in the water, you would expect a crowd lining up to take their shot, but there wasn't.

Why did challengers not materialize?

Part of the blame lies with the current political environment. In the age of Trump, local politicians, especially school board members, are subjected to harassment and sometimes violence by those who disagree with their policies. This was on full display three years ago when anti‑LGBTQ protestors surrounded Jackie Goldberg at Saticoy Elementary School. Even after voting ended, a business owner upset by the way the candidate’s wife conducted herself during the campaign has continued to harass BD4 candidate Ankur Patel.

Who would want to subject themselves to this type of vitriol? The cost of stepping into public service has rarely been higher.

United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the union representing the district's teachers, nurses, high school librarians, and other licensed professionals, also deserves part of the blame. As the largest counterweight to the charter school industry, the union has an obligation to build a bench so that candidates are ready when election season arrives. It is inexcusable that Gonez ran unopposed and that UTLA had no one prepared to support in a race against Melvoin, perhaps the most anti‑union of all the Los Angeles school board members.

Even without candidates waiting in the wings, the union had a candidate on the ballot who supported their needs in the race against Melvoin, but did not issue an endorsement. This is a mistake it has made repeatedly over the years.

When I ran against union‑foe Monica Garcia in 2017, I tried to convince UTLA to issue an endorsement in BD2. The union refused, arguing that they did not want to spend money on a campaign with only a long‑shot chance of success. I could not persuade them that the credibility of an endorsement mattered more than the size of the campaign budget. The failure to endorse likely made the difference in the inability to force Garcia into a runoff. That, in turn, allowed the charter school industry to concentrate more resources on electing Nick Melvoin in BD4, costing pro‑public‑education incumbent Steve Zimmer his seat.

The union made this same mistake again four years later in BD6 when it refused to endorse a member of its own union and instead supported Kelly Gonez, the incumbent that the charter school industry had backed in the previous election.

The missed opportunity was highlighted on Election Day when Gonez bested Marvin Rodriguez by only about 2,500 votes. Just giving the Spanish teacher the credibility of the union's endorsement might have been enough to push him over the top, providing the union’s supporters an overwhelming majority on the school board.

Finally, the lack of engagement by the electorate cannot be ignored. How many of those voting for Melvoin did enough research to understand that he voted to renew a school where only 3.26% of students met state standards in math? Or that he approved of an oversight regime that allowed a charter school executive to embezzle $3.1 million? Or that he provided insider information to the charter school industry to help them in a lawsuit against the district?

The policies of the LAUSD school board are extremely unpopular. In addition to unanimously extending a superintendent who is under federal investigation, they have done nothing to resolve allegations that the district is illegally using arts funding provided under PROP-28. It cared so little about its constituents that it reduced the time they are permitted to speak at public meetings by a third. They have refused to fire a career bureaucrat who lied to them about why the district provides some Special Education services in stairwells and closets. And still all three incumbents will continue to serve through the next term.

Score one for the status quo.

Carl Petersen is a former Green Party candidate for the LAUSD School Board and a longtime advocate for public education and special needs families. Now based in Washington State, he writes about politics, culture, and their intersections at TheDifrntDrmr.