Local District Breaks Even in Latest Bout : Education: Board member Mark Slavkin approves of a decision to keep the district intact, but he and others oppose a ruling upholding equalized funding.

Westside schools won one and lost one last week: The City Council gave final approval to a school board redistricting plan that will keep the Westside seat--and voice--intact, while a judge indicated he will approve a spending agreement widely perceived as detrimental to schools on the Westside and in the West San Fernando Valley.

The council decision will lop off the easternmost portion of Westside incumbent Mark Slavkin’s district, as well as a strip running from Venice to Palms, but will give him the West Valley in exchange.

The redrawn district will pit him against Valley board member Julie Korenstein for a single seat in next year’s elections.

The boundaries had to be redrawn to provide expanded representation for Los Angeles’ burgeoning Latino population, but Westside activists successfully fought an earlier plan advanced by the Latino Redistricting Coalition that would have carved up the Westside seat, attaching sections of it to three other districts.

“I’m pleased that their final decision adopted a compromise map that keeps most of the Westside intact,” Slavkin said. “It is not my preferred scenario, but I didn’t want to give up something we knew to advocate something with little chance of passing.”

Slavkin said he is less sanguine about a Superior Court judge’s approval of a consent decree that settles years of litigation over alleged inequalities in school spending within the district.

“While it’s a good idea to equalize funding and transfer power to the schools themselves,” he said, “it’s not wise to lock in an agreement without addressing concerns or costs. At present, no one can know what its impact will be--it appears that its impact on Westside schools is going to vary wildly.”

The hope is, he said, that during a five-year grace period a “subtle distinction” in how teachers are assigned will smooth the transition to the court-ordered changes.

The taxpayer lawsuit, known as Rodriguez vs. LAUSD, was brought by four black and Latino parents who alleged disparities in school funding. They contended that poor and minority children receive inferior education because they are more likely to attend aging, overcrowded schools where the teachers are young and inexperienced, rather than spacious suburban campuses with state-of-the-art equipment and veteran teachers.

Under the proposed settlement hammered out by both sides, starting in the 1997-98 school year, schools would be allotted a set amount of money per student for teacher salaries, books and other classroom supplies, and would control how they spend those funds.

However, bilingual education, school improvement and special-education funds would not be reapportioned, nor would Chapter 1 funds, which are federal allocations for schools in poor neighborhoods, or supplementary funds for schools with less than 30% Anglo enrollments.

Slavkin and Korenstein opposed the agreement, as did a group of Anglo and minority parents known as “the Marcus Intervenors” and unions representing teachers, administrators and office employees--all for different reasons.

Some said more information and analysis is needed; others said they feared teacher displacement and educational disruption as schools seek to stay under budget by hiring rookie teachers at low salaries. Still others contended that the plan amounts to reverse racism and will worsen already epidemic white flight.

An ethnic survey of the city’s schools last fall found that Anglo enrollment has dropped from 58% in 1966 to 13.1%, and to less than 33% on the Westside.

In an hourlong statement delivered Monday after seven days of hearings, however, Judge Pro Tem Ralph Nutter rejected arguments by the plan’s opponents, explaining that he finds the agreement reached by the school district and the coalition of public-interest law firms on behalf of the Rodriguez plaintiffs to be “reasonable and adequate under all the circumstances.”

He invited the lawyers to submit briefs of corrections or proposals by July 21, before he issues his final written decision.

Nutter assured both sides that the decree “is not the end (but) the beginning. . . . It does not mean that the parties cannot seek a modification if there are serious problems down the road.”

He noted that the consent decree specifically prohibits mandatory teacher transfers, and it stipulates that school unions’ collective bargaining rights will not be affected by his decision.

Nutter acknowledged that his comments were not made in a vacuum and that his decision was colored by Los Angeles’ recent unrest and his experience as a juvenile-court judge. “All of us are mutually attempting to solve a very serious problem in this community,” he said. “In this consent decree we are trying to treat all elements of the community fairly without regard to economic status, wealth, race or national origin.”

He said that the objective is to equalize funding and resources “so that, if possible, when children finish their public schooling in this district, they can approach life with some kind of a level playing field where everybody starts even, where one group does not start ahead of the other. It’s a difficult thing to achieve.”

Nutter found that there is a higher percentage of inexperienced teachers in the inner-city schools than elsewhere, that smaller schools cost more per pupil partially because their senior staffs get more money, and that some schools on the Westside and in the West Valley will get less money under the settlement. But he said that is not discriminatory.

“The court finds the consent decree will not lead to lesser educational opportunities for pupils in Districts 2 and 4 (Westside and West Valley),” he said. Instead, it will “improve educational opportunity by creating a fair balance of teacher education and experience throughout the district.”

Calling the proposed decree “racially and economically neutral,” he said the fact that the costs of the program are unknown are no reason to reject it.

“Constitutional rights will not be denied because of any possible uncertainty in the cost,” he said, speculating that the changes might save money in the long run by eliminating the need for levels of administrators.

Critics of the agreement said, however, that it will tip the scales in favor of inner-city schools, even though busing and white flight have made Westside and West Valley schools predominantly minority as well.

“Racial equality is equality across the board,” said Merridee Marcus of Cheviot Hills, spokeswoman for the Marcus Intervenors. “It’s not what ethnic group is in or out of vogue.”

Marcus said that students in Westside schools may find themselves in huge classes and without books--the main cost-cutting options left if mandatory teacher transfers are prohibited. Schools with less than 30% Anglo enrollments already are protected against larger classes, although those with 31% or more Anglo enrollment are not.

Marcus’ husband, Michael, attorney for the Marcus Intervenors, had argued that the agreement is unconstitutional because it discriminates against students on the Westside and in the Valley on the basis of race and wealth.

Saying he is considering an appeal, Marcus said he is “disappointed in Judge Nutter’s tentative ruling.

“The evidence supports a finding that Westside and West Valley students, regardless of their race, will receive fewer benefits under the decree than students in schools in the inner city or Eastside,” he said.