GOP Lawmakers Push for District Breakup

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s school reform plan received one more public airing Tuesday courtesy of two Republican lawmakers who favor a breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The hearing, at Granada Hills Charter High School, allowed Assemblyman Keith S. Richman (R-Northridge) and state Sen. George Runner (R-Lancaster) to remind constituents -- and Villaraigosa -- that they oppose the current form of the bill that would give him substantial authority over the city’s public schools.

The Republican lawmakers would, however, support a version that would give Villaraigosa clear authority over the school system for five years -- and then allow voters to pass judgment on breaking up the nation’s second-largest school system.

“We feel that breakup is the best solution,” Richman said in an interview before the hearing. “But giving the mayor five years to see if focused accountability can bring improvement is a reasonable step.”

Richman said a majority of Republican legislators in both houses would probably support a compromise school reform bill if it included an eventual vote on breakup. But the current bill’s flaws go beyond the lack of a vote on breakup, he added.

“This current proposal puts in an ambiguous, nebulous system of accountability and responsibility,” he said. “Under this proposal, nobody knows who’s going to be in charge. It’s not only worse than the original idea. It may be worse than what already exists.”

Villaraigosa has defended the legislation as a significant improvement over the status quo, which must change, he says, to combat the high dropout rate and low student achievement. But he didn’t make the case in person Tuesday, instead delegating that task to former Mayor Richard Riordan, legal advisor Thomas Saenz and others.

Los Angeles Unified opposes the bill and dispatched Supt. Roy Romer and school board President Marlene Canter to argue that the school system was not failing, but improving rapidly.

Villaraigosa won’t need to deal with Republicans if he can secure enough votes from the Democratic majority, but his team is not declaring victory yet. As it stands, Assembly Bill 1381 would give Villaraigosa direct authority over three high schools and their feeder schools as well as a central role in hiring and firing the superintendent, among other provisions.

The bill represents a compromise reached with the state and local teachers unions, which is partly what bothers Richman and other Republicans.

“There is no question that the teachers union has been an impediment to change in the district,” he said. “There are lots of interests that don’t want change in the district.”

The Legislature is scheduled to act on the bill this month.

United Teachers Los Angeles, which opposes a district breakup, insists that it wants to be at the forefront of education reform efforts.

Tuesday night’s hearing took place in the west San Fernando Valley, a part of the city that politicians have long presumed would favor district breakup. And some of the comments supported that assumption.

“The real answer is to break [the district] up and manage it in a smaller way,” said Sonja Eddings Brown, a Northridge parent who heads the board of Granada Hills Charter High School. She said she is skeptical of the mayor’s plan but also believes the status quo is unacceptable.

Members of leading Valley civic and business groups also addressed the group of about 170 people.

“You can take numbers and make them work any way you want,” said Gregory N. Lippe of the Valley Industry & Commerce Assn., commenting on the competing data provided by the mayor and the school district. “The fact is the district is too large.”

Lippe said he preferred Villaraigosa’s original plan to assume full control of the district and that the compromise legislation deserves to go “back to the drawing board.”

The gathering was not sanctioned by the education committees of either the state Senate or Assembly.

Richman said he and Runner called the hearing because the Democratic leadership elected to have only one public hearing in the Los Angeles area. That hearing took place last week at Irving Middle School in Glassell Park.