Bill to Split L.A. School District Is Shelved

A bill that originally called for developing a plan to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District died quietly Thursday in the state Assembly Ways and Means Committee.

The measure was the fourth piece of education legislation sponsored in the last two years by Assemblywoman Marian W. La Follette (R-Northridge) that failed to attract enough votes to move out of a committee.

A La Follette aide said the former trustee of the Los Angeles Community College District is frustrated by the early demise of her bills.

“She is trying her best to represent the interests of her constituents, but it seems that all of her attempts are blocked,” said Janeece Glenn, a La Follette legislative assistant.

Lobbyists who have worked for and against many of La Follette’s measures have wide-ranging opinions about the education bills. Some said La Follette’s measures are too conservative for the Legislature. Others said her legislation may grab headlines, but does not stand up to committee scrutiny.

“These are not nuisance bills because you can just shrug off a nuisance,” said a lobbyist who has opposed many La Follette bills. “They are worse than a nuisance, because a lot of people have to work very hard to get the stuff defeated.”

Since January, 1987, La Follette has introduced eight measures dealing with education, according to Legitech, a private company that tracks state bills and political contributions. Four of the bills were defeated in committee. The others are pending.

The bill that died Thursday originally called for creating a plan to break up the Los Angeles school system, the largest in the state, into smaller districts. The measure faced strong opposition from teachers’ associations, the California School Board Assn. and the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Critics said it would diminish the district’s racial and ethnic diversity while compounding other problems. They maintained that smaller districts would be inadequately funded, it would take longer to improve or replace antiquated school buildings and teachers would be underpaid. Smaller districts would only increase bureaucracy, critics said.

In April, faced with certain defeat in the Assembly Education Committee, La Follette changed the measure so it would authorize a statewide study to examine the size of school districts and the way schools are governed. The proposal called for the Department of Education to conduct the $250,000 study.

The bill was approved by the Education Committee and moved to the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. It was put in the committee’s suspense file Thursday, which means that the study will not be funded.

In an attempt to keep the measure alive, La Follette plans to ask the Assembly research office if it will fund and conduct the study, Glenn said.

Last month, a La Follette-sponsored bill that would have prohibited high school clinics from dispensing contraceptives and providing abortion counseling was defeated in the Assembly Education Committee.

In February, a bill to add $240,000 to the budget of the California School for the Blind in Fremont also died in the Education Committee.

In March, an Assembly-approved bill that would have replaced “alternative schools” with “public schools of choice” died in the Senate’s Appropriations Committee.

There have been some victories, Glenn said. La Follette persuaded the Assembly’s Republican Caucus to unanimously oppose funding for new programs for the Los Angeles school district until it ended support of a counseling program for district gay and lesbian students. The district is reviewing that program.

District officials said the GOP caucus vote has had no impact on the system’s ability to get state funds.

But Glenn argued that the district has not asked for funding for any new programs, and the impact of the caucus vote might be felt before the legislative session ends this fall.