EDITORIAL TOKOFSKY DEPARTS REFORMER'S EXIT MAY BE A BOON FOR REFORM.

DAVID Tokofsky was the kind of leader one sees all too rarely on the Los Angeles Unified School District board: an independent thinker. After representing the Eastside for two terms, he has announced that he won't be seeking re-election in March.

He will be missed, but his departure may help to spur the bold sort of reforms he has always supported.

A former teacher, Tokofsky led his Marshall High School team to a national Academic Decathlon title in 1987. In 1999, he ran for the school board as part of a reform-minded slate of candidates backed by then-Mayor Richard Riordan's Coalition for Kids. The coalition wrested control of the board from a backward-thinking, union-dominated majority, and Tokofsky instantly became one of its most prominent champions of change.

As the LAUSD forged ahead with its misbegotten plans for the Belmont Learning Center, it was Tokofsky who fought to end the wasteful project.

It was Tokofsky who pushed the district to hire a much-needed inspector general to curb waste and fraud.

And it was Tokofsky who helped to create citizens oversight committees that have reduced the abuse and waste that was once rampant in school bond spending.

But sometimes Tokofsky was too independent for his own good. After repeatedly exposing corruption and incompetence at the LAUSD, the city elites who once backed him decided they'd had enough, and they funded his opponent in 2003. So Tokofsky, desperate for campaign cash, cozied up with United Teachers Los Angeles -- and held on to office.

Since then, his rhetoric has quieted, but he has remained independent, even bucking his own union supporters by fiercely opposing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's school-takeover plan. It was the fight over Assembly Bill 1381, in fact, that led Tokofsky to grow tired of school politics and decide not to seek a third term.

Yet, ironically, this reformer's retirement may be a boon for reform.

Like Riordan before him, Villaraigosa is now backing candidates to bring change to the LAUSD. One of those is Flores Aguilar, who is running in Tokofsky's district.

With Tokofsky stepping down, Aguilar now may become part of a new majority that works with the mayor to change the direction of the LAUSD. This new direction is not one Tokofsky would have chosen, but it is a real step toward reform. And for seven years, Tokofsky has been the district's most reliable reformer.

Through it all, Tokofsky has shown himself to be the rare sort of politician who can play the game without becoming beholden to it. He has set a good example for those who will follow in his footsteps, working to make the LAUSD more answerable to parents and students -- and less to the bureaucracy and special interests.