Rally Pushes for School Reforms : Education: About 15,000 gather at the Sports Arena in an effort by Kids 1st to show strength. Among the goals is improving programs for minority students.

With all the trappings of a revival meeting for education, Kids 1st, a recently formed business and parents group, brought about 15,000 people to the Los Angeles Sports Arena on Sunday to push for reforms in the public schools.

Participants, most arriving in school buses, cheered while group leaders introduced Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dianne Feinstein and sought from officials various commitments--ranging from more air-conditioned classrooms and state money for innovations to school safety. Several state legislators joined members of local school boards, Los Angeles Supt. Bill Anton and Helen Bernstein, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles on stage.

“It is our job to get these schools ready for our kids!” one organizer shouted over the din of a temperamental sound system.

“I hope this sends a message to people who say parents don’t really care about their kids’ education,” business executive Joseph Alibrandi told the crowd made up predominantly of Latinos and blacks, groups who have fared the worst in school.

The rally, buoyant and contentious, featured banner-waving community groups, mariachis, gospel music and a collection plate. Cards were passed out to help form a “parents union.”

At one point, organizers tried to discredit other business groups working to improve education, saying their leaders did not want Kids 1st, with its minorities and activists, to participate in school reforms. They did not name the groups. The major business organizations working with the schools have endorsed broad parent and community participation.

Judging by its list of 17 principles--”Quality education is vital to a democratic society and a healthy economy” and “Parents must be allowed and encouraged to be deeply involved in their children’s education”--the goals of Kids 1st are similar to those of many others trying to improve schools.

Kids 1st began organizing about a year ago, when leaders of several church-based groups teamed up with a high-profile segment of Los Angeles’ business community to push for an overhaul of the troubled public school system.

Its first rally, in July, drew about 3,000. Last month, some of its members showed up at a school board meeting and demanded that the board scrap a plan to install air conditioning in 61 schools and instead provide the service to 150 schools by the end of next year. The board, citing budget problems, stuck to its plan.

The community groups, under the aegis of the Southern California branch of the Industrial Areas Foundation, claim to represent 265,000 families throughout the Los Angeles Basin. The groups, organized from Catholic, Protestant and Jewish congregations, include United Neighborhoods Organization from the Eastside, Southern California Organizing Committee in the South-Central Los Angeles and Compton areas, East (San Gabriel, Pomona) Valleys Organization and the (San Fernando) Valley Organized in Community Effort.

The groups are practiced in the techniques of the late social reformer Saul Alinsky, who founded IAF in Chicago in 1940 to be a confrontational force in wrangling concessions from elected officials and bureaucracies.

Business executives in Kids 1st include Alibrandi of the Whittaker Corp., Richard Gottlieb of WSGP International, and attorney and investor Richard Riordan, a Republican backer of Mayor Tom Bradley who has bought computers for public and Catholic inner-city schools.

For a while, Riordan was pushing for dismantling the 625,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District, a movement spawned by conservatives in the San Fernando Valley. Lately, he has teamed up with UTLA’s Bernstein to argue publicly against breaking up the nation’s second-largest district.

Like many other corporate leaders who have been working with the schools in recent years, these businessmen are worried about the effects a poorly educated generation of youngsters will have on the work force and California’s economy. The parents’ concerns range from safety and crowded schools to student achievement and equitable treatment for all youngsters and their families.

Many others, including school board members and business, parent and civic groups have expressed similar concerns. Criticism of the district includes failing to meet the needs of large numbers of its students, more than 85% of whom are minorities, including 61.5% Latinos.

Some attempts at reform have been launched. The Los Angeles district is taking steps to cut its central bureaucracy and shift more of its resources to the schools, along with giving more authority to principals, teachers and parents in deciding how their schools operate. Another business group, the Los Angeles Educational Partnership, is providing funds for innovative classroom projects.

Kids 1st has set for itself the ambitious goal of building a broad enough coalition to help bring about fundamental changes, not just in Los Angeles but in neighboring districts as well.