PERSPECTIVE ON LOS ANGELES EDUCATION : Don’t Atomize the School District : A new partnership must be formed and bring its power to bear on a school system in crisis.

No one can deny that in Los Angeles, a revolution has begun. This revolution has as its focal point the children of this city and is being waged in the mammoth Los Angeles Unified School District. Its goal is to restructure--not merely reorganize or reshuffle--what does not work.

This means that a new partnership must be forged and maintained among business, civic leaders, community organizations and religious groups, alongside United Teachers-Los Angeles, the 36,000 teachers it represents and parents, students, administrators, principals and classified personnel.

The decade-long battle to break up the district must be rejected. It is a scheme with a simplistic appeal and very questionable results. The experiences of the ethnically diverse school districts of Chicago and New York indicate that this is not the solution. Their new “school boards” tend to be even more politicized than the previous large ones. They tend to attract people whose main goal is not educating youth but furthering their own political ambitions--or worse, lining their pockets. In these situations it is harder to involve the business community, which is either brought in or kept out depending on the whim of individual board members.

Furthermore, breaking up the Los Angeles district brings with it the specter of many small and poor districts whose students are largely Latino and African-American. It would hurt those students who need help the most. It would bring overcrowding on a scale not seen before in this city and (even with some sort of busing) would create jurisdictional disputes that would embroil the new school system in controversy and rancor for years.

We say no to breaking up the LAUSD and yes to real change. To succeed we must risk failure, create new and innovative programs and constantly correct any mistakes.

The restructuring of public education is a trend throughout the country. The contract negotiated in 1989 by UTLA provided for the seeds of school-based management whereby the business of sharing decisions regarding each and every school in this district is now in the hands of teachers, principals, parents, classified personnel, community members and students--a partnership based on mutual respect and consensus. But this humble step forward does not go far enough because the participants have not been given the power to make real changes in areas of curriculum, personnel, budget and purchasing. These are still the province of board policy, which has proved to be outdated at best, and discriminatory at worst.

The 1990s must be an era of experimentation. Every one of us who cares about kids must be open to new ideas. We must be willing to look and learn about new teaching methods and be tolerant of the use of “traditional” teaching methods that are being brought to bear in new and fruitful ways. It is imperative that we dismantle once and for all the old and counterproductive relationships of antagonism and competition that have existed for decades between administrators, teachers and parents.

Reorganization also will necessitate fundamental change outside the classroom. Deep and lasting changes are required in state laws and regulations and in national educational policies. A new way of doing business is needed whereby society brings its strength to bear on a school system in the throes of crisis.

The bottom line is saving a whole generation of our youth. The litany of social ills--illiteracy, crime, drug use, gang affiliation, homelessness--all have at their root a society that has failed in education. The breakneck speed at which technology is advancing has put demands on education that it currently cannot meet.

Restructuring this district is not an easy job. The new partnership we are calling for is a bold step. Teachers, business leaders, administrators, parents and students need to be empowered on the one hand and held accountable on the other. Time is not on our side. The whole country, however, is watching.