The first in a series examining Riverside Unified, academic performance, taxpayer accountability, organized labor, and the role parents must play in public education.

There is an important distinction in public government that too often gets ignored:

Something can be legal and still raise serious questions about good governance.

That distinction matters enormously when an employee union financially supports, organizes for, endorses, or otherwise helps elect the very public officials who will later sit on the opposite side of the bargaining table.

That is the issue Riverside parents and taxpayers should be willing to discuss openly.

The Riverside City Teachers Association exists to represent the employment interests of its members. There is nothing improper about that mission. Collective bargaining is part of California public education, and teachers have every right to organize and advocate for compensation, benefits, working conditions and employment protections.

But a school-board trustee has an entirely different fiduciary responsibility.

A trustee does not represent the teachers union.

A trustee does not represent district administrators.

A trustee does not represent contractors.

A trustee does not represent political organizations.

A trustee represents the public, with responsibility for the education of children and stewardship of public resources.

And that creates an unavoidable governance question when one of the organizations with substantial financial interests in decisions made by the school board also participates aggressively in determining who sits on that board.

Campaign Support Is Legal. That Does Not End the Conversation.

California’s campaign-finance laws permit unions and political committees to participate in elections subject to disclosure and other requirements.

In fact, California’s Fair Political Practices Commission has specifically explained that campaign contributions generally are not treated as personal income or gifts to an officeholder for conflict-of-interest purposes. California’s special pay-to-play statute also contains important limitations and exceptions, including treatment of labor agreements.

So this argument should not be distorted into an accusation that a disclosed union endorsement or campaign contribution is inherently illegal.

It is not.

But legality is the floor of government ethics, not necessarily the ceiling.

The larger question is one of institutional independence.

When an organization helps finance or politically support a candidate and that candidate subsequently participates in decisions affecting the compensation, benefits, job protections and working conditions of that organization’s members, the public has every right to examine the relationship.

That does not prove corruption.

It does not prove a quid pro quo.

It does not establish that any particular vote was purchased.

But it creates precisely the type of relationship that deserves transparency and public scrutiny.

The appropriate question is therefore not:

“Was something illegal?”

It is:

“Can taxpayers be confident that every decision was made independently and solely on the merits?”

Those are very different standards.

The Board Is Supposed to Be the Public’s Side of the Bargaining Table

Consider the institutional structure.

During collective bargaining, the teachers association represents teachers.

Its negotiators are supposed to pursue the best possible agreement for their members.

That is their job.

They may seek increased salaries.

They may seek improved benefits.

They may seek smaller class sizes.

They may seek restrictions on transfers, evaluations, disciplinary procedures or working conditions.

They may seek additional staffing.

They may seek limits on management flexibility.

Some of those proposals may also benefit students.

Some may have little effect on students.

Some may require difficult tradeoffs between employee compensation and other educational priorities.
That is why there are two sides of a bargaining table.

Someone has to represent the district, taxpayers and long-term interests of students.

Ultimately, elected trustees approve the agreement.

That makes independence extraordinarily important.

A trustee should be able to tell the teachers association:

“No. The district cannot afford that.”

Or:

“Yes. This expenditure will improve our ability to recruit and retain excellent teachers.”

Or:

“Show us the educational evidence supporting this proposal.”

Or:

“Before approving additional compensation, explain how this affects classroom resources, special education, facilities, reserves and future liabilities.”

Those decisions should be made on evidence.

Not political loyalty.

Not campaign gratitude.

Not fear of opposition in the next election.

And not an expectation that an organization that helped elect someone deserves something in return.

Riverside Has a Real Example Worth Examining

Dr. Noemi Hernandez Alexander was elected to the Riverside Unified School District Board of Education in November 2022.

She received 6,066 votes, or 37.23 percent, in a four-candidate Trustee Area 1 election. She is now president of the RUSD Board of Education and is seeking reelection in the November 3, 2026 election.

Her current campaign materials publicly identify the Riverside teachers association among her endorsements.

That endorsement is itself legitimate political activity.

But voters are equally entitled to ask what that relationship means when the Board considers compensation, benefits, staffing rules and collective-bargaining agreements affecting the association’s members.

The appropriate approach is not to assume wrongdoing.

It is to demand transparency.

Campaign contributions should be disclosed.

Independent expenditures should be disclosed.

Union-funded communications should be disclosed.

Endorsements should be disclosed.

And when the Board votes on matters affecting employee compensation and working conditions, taxpayers should examine the votes and determine whether the decisions can be justified by educational results, labor-market conditions and the district’s finances.

The Ultimate Measure Must Be Student Performance

Campaign endorsements are secondary.

Political affiliations are secondary.

Personal relationships are secondary.

The primary question for a Board of Education should be extraordinarily simple:

Are Riverside students receiving the educational results the community should reasonably expect from the resources being invested?

Here the numbers deserve attention.

California’s official 2024-25 CAASPP results show that across Riverside Unified:

47.33% of students met or exceeded the state standard in English Language Arts.

That means approximately 52.67% did not.

In mathematics:

33.20% met or exceeded the state standard.

Approximately 66.80% did not.

Those numbers should concern everyone involved in RUSD governance.

There is also important context: the district improved from 2024, with the percentage meeting or exceeding standards increasing approximately 1.85 percentage points in English and 1.63 points in mathematics.

Improvement should be acknowledged.

But improvement and satisfactory performance are two different questions.

When roughly two-thirds of tested students are not meeting or exceeding the mathematics standard, Riverside should be having an intense conversation about educational outcomes.

And that conversation should dominate school-board politics.

One Trustee Does Not Own Every District Outcome

Accountability also requires intellectual honesty.

Hernandez Alexander joined the Board after the November 2022 election. She therefore cannot reasonably be held personally responsible for every problem that predates her tenure, nor can any single trustee control a five-member board or a district serving tens of thousands of students.

Educational performance is affected by numerous factors: curriculum, instructional quality, student attendance, family circumstances, poverty, English-language acquisition, special-education needs, pandemic learning disruption, district administration, state policy and classroom conditions.

But incumbency carries responsibility.

An incumbent asking voters for another term can fairly be asked:

What improved?

What did not?

What policies did you support?

What did they cost?

What measurable outcomes resulted?

What would you change?

Those are accountability questions, not personal attacks.

Follow the Money Alongside the Outcomes

The financial numbers are equally important.

Federal NCES data for Riverside Unified for fiscal year 2022-23 show approximately:

• $906.4 million in total revenue
• $743.2 million in total expenditures
• $669.7 million in current expenditures
• $16,986 in current expenditures per pupil
• $18,852 in total expenditures per pupil

Instructional expenditures accounted for approximately $10,261 per pupil in that dataset.

Those figures do not prove that RUSD spends too much or too little.

They establish something more fundamental:

Public education is an enormous taxpayer investment.

With that investment should come measurable accountability.

The question should never simply be:

“Did we increase the budget?”

It should be:

“What educational result did taxpayers purchase with the additional money?”

Riverside Has Already Received a Serious Warning About Financial Transparency

This concern is not theoretical.

On June 9, 2026, the California State Auditor released its review of RUSD’s proposed Riverside STEM Education Center.

The auditor did not conclude that RUSD illegally used Measure O money.

That distinction is important.

But the auditor found significant governance problems.

The report concluded that delayed decision-making and inconsistent communication contributed to delays, higher costs and reduced transparency.

The auditor found that RUSD had inconsistently reported how much Measure O funding had been allocated or committed to the STEM project.

According to the audit, the district sometimes reported financial commitments without sufficiently clear documentation showing Board authorization.

The auditor wrote that these inconsistencies limited the ability of both the Board and the community to understand the district’s actual funding plans and made accountability more difficult.

That matters.

It means Riverside’s debate about fiscal accountability is not based simply on political rhetoric.

California’s independent state auditor identified legitimate transparency deficiencies and recommended that RUSD standardize its budgeting, accounting and reporting procedures.

As of the auditor’s published follow-up page, those recommendations were scheduled for district action by December 2026.

Again, that does not make one trustee personally responsible for the entire history of the STEM project.

The project itself predates the current Board composition.

But an incumbent Board has responsibility for correcting governance failures once they are identified.

That is a fair standard for every trustee.

The Larger National Question: More Money Has Not Automatically Produced Proportional Academic Improvement

There is also a broader issue Riverside should be willing to discuss.

American public education has become dramatically more expensive over generations.

NCES historical data show that national current expenditures per enrolled student, adjusted into constant 2022-23 dollars, were about $6,354 in 1970-71.

By recent decades, inflation-adjusted spending was far higher.

That means the United States has unquestionably devoted substantially greater real resources per student to public education.

Academic outcomes, however, have not risen proportionally.

NAEP’s long-term trend data illustrate why this deserves discussion. Reading performance among younger students improved over portions of the historical period, but long-term progress has been uneven and recent declines have erased some gains. The data do not support a simple story in which steadily increasing expenditures automatically produce steadily increasing achievement.

That should trouble policymakers.

But it would also be inaccurate to make the opposite leap and say:

“Teachers unions caused all of the decline.”

The research does not establish that.

What Does Research Actually Say About Teachers Unions?

This is where public discussion deserves more sophistication than campaign slogans from either side.

Teachers unions can affect education policy through collective bargaining, elections, lobbying and political organization.

Economic research indicates that union strength can influence how education dollars are allocated.

A 2023 study published in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, examining California school boards, found that electing an additional educator to a school board increased teacher salaries relative to boards with other types of members; the authors interpreted the results as consistent with bargaining shifting in favor of teachers unions.

Other research has identified potential adverse effects.

Michael Lovenheim and Alexander Willén studied state duty-to-bargain laws and reported negative long-term labor-market effects for men exposed to teacher collective bargaining during childhood.

Research following Wisconsin’s restructuring of public-sector collective bargaining has also found improvements in certain student outcomes associated with reforms that reduced union power and gave districts greater compensation flexibility.

But there is evidence pointing in another direction as well.

Research examining school-finance reforms found that districts with stronger unions directed more new state aid into school spending and teacher compensation—and that the additional expenditures were associated with larger gains in student achievement.

Another multi-state study found that additional operational school spending generated measurable gains in test scores and graduation rates, particularly in lower-spending districts.

And recent research into teacher strikes found substantial increases in teacher compensation and modest reductions in pupil-teacher ratios following strikes, with little evidence of large achievement effects from the average strike, although longer strikes were associated with short-term mathematics losses.

So the serious conclusion is not:

“Unions are responsible for every educational problem.”

Nor is it:

“More spending always produces better schools.”

The evidence supports something more useful:

Incentives matter. Governance matters. How money is allocated matters. Teacher quality matters. Accountability matters.

And political influence over the people deciding those questions deserves scrutiny.

Teachers and Teachers Unions Are Not the Same Thing

This distinction is crucial.

Criticism of union political activity should never become criticism of teachers as individuals.

Riverside has thousands of educators who spend their careers teaching children, helping struggling students, managing difficult classrooms, communicating with parents and performing work that is essential to the community.

Many teachers undoubtedly share parents’ concerns about bureaucracy, academic standards and district priorities.

The political organization representing employees is a different institution.

A union has a duty to represent its membership.

A school board has a duty to govern the district.

Those interests frequently overlap.

But they are not identical.

An excellent teacher deserves competitive compensation.

Students deserve excellent teachers.

Taxpayers benefit when RUSD can recruit and retain them.

But taxpayers also deserve a district capable of differentiating between expenditures that demonstrably improve student outcomes and expenditures that merely increase institutional costs.

That distinction becomes harder—not easier—when the organization bargaining for those expenditures is also heavily involved in choosing the people who approve them.

Imagine This Structure Anywhere Else in Government

Consider the governance principle outside education.

Suppose a corporation allowed a vendor negotiating a multimillion-dollar contract to finance the campaigns for members of the corporation’s procurement committee.

Would the contract automatically be corrupt?

No.

Would the board want extensive disclosure and independent review?

Absolutely.

Suppose a city contractor spent heavily electing councilmembers who subsequently determined the contractor’s compensation.

Would every subsequent contract be illegal?

No.

Would taxpayers appropriately scrutinize the relationship?

Of course.

School districts should not receive a lower standard merely because the interested organization represents public employees.

The Question Is Independence

Every RUSD trustee—regardless of endorsements, ideology or political affiliation—should be able to demonstrate independence.

When the teachers association presents a reasonable proposal benefiting educators and students, trustees should be willing to approve it.

When it presents a proposal that is financially unsustainable or unsupported by educational evidence, trustees should be equally willing to reject it.

And the same principle should apply to administrators, contractors, consultants, developers and every other organized interest seeking something from the district.

The Board should owe no political debt when it enters the boardroom.

That is ultimately what independent governance means.

Riverside Parents Need Better Metrics

One way to move this conversation beyond ideology is to establish measurable expectations.

Before approving major new expenditures or multiyear commitments, parents and taxpayers should be able to see:

Academic performance

• Grade-level reading proficiency
• Mathematics proficiency
• Learning growth
• Achievement gaps
• English-learner progress

Student readiness

• Graduation rates
• College readiness
• Career-technical completion
• Dual-enrollment participation
• Chronic absenteeism

Financial performance

• Spending per pupil
• Classroom versus administrative expenditures
• Employee compensation growth
• Pension and benefit obligations
• Reserve levels
• Capital-project performance

Governance

• Campaign contributions
• Independent expenditures
• organizational endorsements
• Board voting records
• Collective-bargaining agreements
• Contract costs
• Audit findings and corrective actions

Then residents can examine relationships rather than speculate about them.

Results Should Matter More Than Political Alliances

This is the fundamental issue.

Riverside’s public-school system does not exist to preserve any political institution.

It does not exist for a union.

It does not exist for administrators.

It does not exist for consultants.

It does not exist for elected trustees.

All of those institutions and individuals exist because Riverside has children who need to be educated.

That priority has to remain unmistakable.

When only 47.33 percent of RUSD students tested are meeting or exceeding the state English standard and only 33.20 percent are meeting or exceeding the mathematics standard, the community has every justification for demanding a serious discussion about performance.

When a California State Auditor identifies weaknesses in transparency and financial reporting, the community has every justification for demanding corrective action.

And when organizations with direct financial interests before a school board become involved in electing members of that board, voters have every justification for examining the relationship.

None of that requires conspiracy theories.

It requires records.

This Series Will Follow the Records

This article is the first in a series examining Riverside Unified School District through measurable evidence rather than campaign messaging.

Future installments will examine:

RUSD academic performance over time.

District expenditures and spending per student.

Administrative versus classroom spending.

Compensation and collective-bargaining agreements.

Campaign contributions and independent expenditures.

Board voting records.

RUSD’s Measure O expenditures and the State Auditor’s findings.

Enrollment trends.

Academic achievement gaps.

School-by-school performance.

Parent participation and public access to Board decision-making.

And the measurable results produced by major district initiatives.

The purpose should not be to vilify teachers or any other group.

It should be to restore something basic to the center of public education:

Students first. Evidence first. Accountability always.

Parents do not need to become professional political activists.

But they should know what their school district is doing.

They should read the performance data.

They should follow the money.

They should attend Board meetings.

They should examine campaign-finance disclosures.

They should read collective-bargaining agreements.

They should question major expenditures.

They should demand understandable metrics.

And they should require every elected trustee to explain how major decisions advance student education and protect public resources.

Organized interests will always participate in politics.

That is their right.

The counterweight in a representative system is an informed public.

For Riverside’s parents, the most consequential question is not which organization has the strongest political operation.

It is whether Riverside’s children are receiving the education that nearly a billion-dollar public institution should be capable of delivering.

That is the standard against which every policy, every expenditure, every labor agreement and every trustee’s record deserves to be examined.