Peter Ostroff's Incapable of Improvement Claim Is an Embarrassment

Peter Ostroff picked a spectacularly bad moment to declare Beverly Hills Unified incapable of improvement. Students have already supplied the answer to his argument. They raised their scores.

In his final election thoughts in this week's Beverly Hills Weekly, Ostroff writes that the current leadership has demonstrated conclusively that it cannot achieve improvement. Here are his actual words:

the current leadership has demonstrated conclusively that they are incapable of achieving improvement.

Conclusive is a demanding word. It requires evidence strong enough to settle the question. Ostroff supplies no academic figures in this passage. The latest results supply plenty.

EdSource's statewide math-gains chart, prepared by Yuxuan Xie from California Department of Education data, places BHUSD ninth among districts with at least 500 students tested. Its share of students meeting or exceeding math standards rose from 62.8% in 2024-25 to 68.7% in 2025-26, a gain of 5.9 percentage points. BHUSD has the highest current math proficiency rate among the ten districts listed.

That ranking belongs to EdSource's analysis. The improvement belongs to the public record.

The district's October 14 academic update documents a longer rise. Between 2024 and 2026, math proficiency increased from 57.74% to 68.72%, science from 42.68% to 56.44%, and English from 68.52% to 75.44%. Those are gains of 10.98, 13.76 and 6.92 percentage points, respectively.

The regional comparison also undermines his verdict. The published CAASPP results show BHUSD's annual math gain of roughly 5.9 points exceeding roughly 2.9 in Culver City Unified and 1.4 in Santa Monica-Malibu Unified. Beverly Hills also recorded a larger annual English gain than either district. These comparisons concern the percentage of tested students meeting standards in each year's testing group, rather than the progress of the same individual children.

Students, teachers, staff, administrators and families deserve credit. The figures do not isolate any individual trustee's contribution. They also leave substantial work ahead for children who have not reached proficiency. Neither qualification rescues a categorical claim that improvement cannot be achieved under the current leadership. Improvement has been recorded under that leadership.

Ostroff can argue that the gains are insufficient. He can demand better results, stronger support or different policies. Declaring the leadership conclusively incapable of improvement while omitting the improvement is an embarrassment for the argument he has chosen to publish.

His final assessment also belongs beside the campaign advocacy that preceded it. In his October 15 column, Ostroff explicitly endorsed Jackie Kruger and Kimberly Lifschitz, called them outstanding candidates and urged readers to vote for them. He devoted extensive criticism to Judy Manouchehri and ridiculed David Cienfuegos. His political preference is stated plainly in his own writing.

Endorsements are legitimate. Readers should still expect the same scrutiny for the people receiving his praise as for the people receiving his condemnation.

Kruger's professional record illustrates the problem. Ostroff praised her experience as a trial lawyer. The State Bar's disciplinary summary records one year of probation for violating a court order and failing to report sanctions on time, effective January 27, 2023. Her current attorney profile lists her license as active and specifies probation with no actual suspension. That history does not decide her candidacy. It does belong in a serious assessment of the professional judgment Ostroff promotes.

Lifschitz's conduct deserves equally direct examination. The Standard published a WhatsApp screenshot showing messages under her name about Russell Stuart wearing a kippah in connection with his Western Wall visit. Stuart authenticated the messages for the publication. One reads:

Maybe he can bust out the kippah from his dress up trunk

The follow-up treats the religious head covering as a container for airline nuts. In our assessment, using a Jewish religious object as the basis for that personal ridicule is antisemitic mockery. This judgment concerns the language and its religious target; it does not claim access to Lifschitz's private thoughts.

The Standard also documented a separate remark comparing Sigalie Sabag's discussion of Holocaust survivors to collecting Pokémon, with Stuart identifying his direct viewing of the original message. Sabag provided a direct response condemning the trivialization of Holocaust history. These are serious matters for an endorser who presented Lifschitz as a candidate offering civility.

Ostroff's latest election passage does not address either controversy. It does find space to mock Cienfuegos's denial of alignment with Manouchehri. That choice reinforces the imbalance: condemnation for the candidates he opposes, no comparable examination here of the candidates he supports.

His handling of the campaign-sign dispute deserves scrutiny as well. In his October 15 column, he moved from condemning Cienfuegos's conduct to telling readers the court agreed. A columnist's characterization of a court order should never substitute for its actual terms, procedural context and underlying evidence.

The Standard's own October 5 reporting included a direct written response from Beverly Hills Police Captain Kevin Orth confirming that the vehicle shown in the posted video was involved in campaign-sign thefts and that police had identified a juvenile suspect. The response did not establish vehicle ownership, identify the driver or prove every accusation accompanying the video. It established a police-confirmed basis for taking the underlying theft investigation seriously.

Protecting a family's safety and examining campaign-sign thefts are both legitimate concerns. Serious commentary must account for both. Turning the dispute into a blanket character verdict on Cienfuegos gives readers less than the full context.

Ostroff closes by calling for unity and academics as the sole priority. A credible appeal for academic improvement should begin by acknowledging the improvement students have already achieved. A credible appeal for civility should examine the religious mockery associated with a candidate he endorsed. A credible appeal for accountability should include the documented professional record of the other.

His civic experience gives him every opportunity to make a substantive case. It gives him no exemption from the obligation to support it. Families do not owe a columnist deference because he writes with certainty.

Our assessment is that this sequence reads as a political hit job: favorable treatment of his preferred candidates, sweeping condemnation of their opponents and an academic verdict that fails to address the most relevant recent results. That assessment follows the published choices on the page.

Before November 3, voters deserve a case that survives contact with the evidence. Peter Ostroff's claim that BHUSD leadership cannot achieve improvement does not. The students' results are already in.