L.A. Mayor Details Plan for Schools

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Friday outlined his most detailed plan yet for taking control of the Los Angeles schools, saying that he would keep the elected Board of Education but in a reduced role and appoint the superintendent and other top district leaders.

Villaraigosa, continuing his steady criticism of the Los Angeles Unified School District, said mayoral oversight would bring public accountability to a system lacking a “sense of urgency” or a “culture of reform.”

“I don’t see, frankly, right now the kind of leadership in that school district that is really engaged in reforms and making the bold decisions we need to get results,” Villaraigosa said at a City Hall news conference. “What we have isn’t working, pure and simple.”

Villaraigosa’s comments drew a sharp rebuke from the school board’s longest-serving member, Julie Korenstein.

“What I want to hear from [Villaraigosa] is why he thinks this will help improve our schools?” she said. “I don’t have a clue why he thinks it would make things better if he could appoint the superintendent and senior staff. Is the city run that well? Isn’t it running a large deficit? I don’t get it at all.”

Villaraigosa offered the fresh details of his takeover plans on the eve of a trip to New York City, where he hopes to study how Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg won control of the nation’s largest school system.

Villaraigosa will spend Monday and Tuesday visiting schools and meeting with Bloomberg and his lieutenants, labor leaders, business executives and others.

He also expressed interest in visiting other cities where the mayors have had a hand in the schools, including Chicago, Cleveland and Boston.

“There are many in Los Angeles who think that bold change won’t work,” Villaraigosa said. “New York is showing us that we can do it.”

Bloomberg won control of New York City’s schools nearly four years ago after he persuaded the state Legislature that he could rein in the bureaucracy and improve academics in the system of 1.1 million students.

A state law replaced the city’s elected Board of Education with an advisory panel, allowing the mayor to appoint the majority of its members.

Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman, named his own schools chancellor, former federal prosecutor Joel I. Klein. The two reorganized the school system, trimming the bureaucracy, and introduced new reading and math programs, and ended the practice of allowing many failing students to advance through the grades.

Critics accuse Bloomberg and Klein of pressing their agenda while ignoring the concerns of teachers, administrators and parents.

Villaraigosa envisions a hybrid of the New York model: He said he would keep the elected school board intact -- but in a lesser capacity that has yet to be defined -- to give voters a say in the schools and to avoid legal snags that could arise from appointing some board members.

As with Bloomberg in New York, he would appoint the district chief and his advisors. He said his team would redirect money and other resources to schools, and give parents and teachers a greater say over school budgets, creating what he called a “culture of excellence.”

He said the ultimate goal would be to reduce the school district’s dropout rate, which Los Angeles Unified officials have pegged at 33%, and improve test scores throughout the system -- including high schools, where scores have not budged for several years.

School Board President Marlene Canter put a positive face on Villaraigosa’s nascent plans, saying she hoped that the mayor’s call for an elected school board would clear the way for more collaboration.

“I hope this is a step toward putting politics behind us,” she said, adding that she was “thrilled that he’s recognized the reality that elected school boards represent the people.”

But Canter also dismissed as impractical the mayor’s plan to take some authority away from the school board, indicating that it could trigger power struggles that would do little to advance the cause of education.

Another of California’s largest school systems, Oakland Unified, has struggled with this delicate balance of power.

In 2000, Oakland voters approved an amendment to the City Charter that gave Mayor Jerry Brown the authority to appoint only a few additional members to the elected school board.

Without Brown in control over a majority of the board, little got done as elected members squared off against his appointees.

Brown said he has counseled Villaraigosa against a similar plan, saying that unless he has complete control, he won’t have enough power to make significant changes.

The head of the Los Angeles teachers union said that any power-sharing structure could ultimately backfire in a school district in which the needs of children and billions of dollars are at stake.

“If I had a problem at a school that I needed to work on, would I go to the local school board elected person? Or would I go to the mayor?” asked A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. “As a citizen, and a consumer of public education, I’m confused already.”

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Times staff writer Lynn Doan contributed to this report.