L.A. Mayoral Candidates Get Education in Schools Crisis

One candidate promises to spend at least an hour a week teaching in a public classroom. Another buys full-page newspaper ads to push for the breakup of the giant Los Angeles Unified School District.

Still another calls for metal detectors at every high school and middle school campus. And somebody else advocates stripping funds from the city’s redevelopment agency to pay for more textbooks, smaller classes and higher teacher salaries.

But these are not candidates for the Board of Education. These people are running for mayor of Los Angeles, an office that, technically speaking, has no role to play in operating the schools. But the staggering public school system has become one of the hot issues in the hard-fought contest to succeed retiring Mayor Tom Bradley.

Education’s unprecedented prominence in the city election stems in part from growing public concerns, heightened recently by two fatal campus shootings and by debate over breaking up the district. Playing up these issues has left candidates open to charges that they are pandering to voters’ fears by pointing fingers and offering nice sounding but unworkable solutions.

But education’s presence in the race also reflects a growing awareness, in Los Angeles and across the nation, that schools need--and deserve--support and leadership from all segments of a community: business, civic and political.

“Over the past 20 years, we have looked to the experts to improve our schools,” said Theodore Mitchell, dean of UCLA’s Graduate School of Education. “Recently, we have come to see there is a community solution. The next mayor can play a very important role in creating the necessary support for community involvement . . . by showing how the city can work with the schools.”

As in many other cities, the Board of Education and City Hall have operated independently for years. Locally, the municipal government has little jurisdiction over the school district--which includes all or parts of 27 other cities. Its only responsibilities are running school board elections and redrawing political boundaries for every school board seat after each census.

Although the Los Angeles school system was once part of the city government, the two entities have charted their separate courses since the Legislature created an independent school district in 1872.

Nationally, schools traditionally have been an issue in municipal campaigns only in those few places--including New York, Boston, Chicago and Baltimore--in which a mayor has some say in setting education budgets or has the authority to appoint school board members.

But that is beginning to change, said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools. From Seattle to Memphis, Tenn. (which elected its former schools chief to the mayor’s post), there is a growing recognition that a mayor “should be doing everything he or she can to improve the quality of life in the city by improving the quality of the schools,” Casserly said.

He cited campaigning for school tax measures, forging business and school partnerships, and providing after-school programs and health services as examples of ways a city’s political leaders can help schools. All, he added, are methods that do not threaten the political jurisdiction to set policy that voters have granted to elected school board members.

“It is healthy in general to have as many players as possible, including the mayor, putting their shoulders to the wheel with urban schools,” Casserly said. “But somebody has to be ultimately accountable, and that somebody is still the school board.”

At least some of the 11 major candidates for Los Angeles mayor acknowledge the limits. “Although the mayor has no real power over the schools, no one has ever really tried to take a leadership role,” said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), who added that he would use the mayoral post as a “bully pulpit to make the safety and education of our kids one of the city’s highest priorities.”

Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani acknowledged that Bradley has not taken the “bully pulpit” approach during his two decades in office. But that is because Bradley believed until recently that the school board was fulfilling its responsibility “to encourage the private sector and taxpayers to support the school system,” Fabiani said.

Bradley has shown interest in the schools, however, Fabiani said. He cited the mayor’s use of city funds to establish after-school programs on 20 campuses, his support of a broad-based reform program for the district, and his offer to mediate a teachers-school board labor dispute that brought the city to the brink of a strike. (Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) later was chosen to settle the matter.)

Fabiani said the course Bradley chose “is a role that recognizes the mayor is not running the school system but certainly can assist” in specific areas. And he cautioned would-be successors not to promise what they can’t deliver.

“Clearly, education is an issue of tremendous concern to voters and one that will have a lot to do with the future of the city,” Fabiani said. “But voters need to understand what can be accomplished by a mayor and what can’t. . . . Some of the candidates have taken the easy way out and (promised solutions) that, once they get into office, they would have a difficult time fulfilling.”

School district officials have watched the campaign with mixed feelings.

“Under the pressure of politics, it’s very easy to pick on the school district as the public whipping boy,” said Supt. Sid Thompson. What he and school board members said they would like is help: assistance for the school police, anti-gang counseling programs, recreation services for school-age youngsters, and mentor and apprenticeship programs--ideas some candidates have offered.

“Children, youth and education should be a very important issue in this city,” said Board of Education member Jeff Horton. But Horton added that a “significant part of the campaign” has centered on criticizing the district, a tactic that “does not accomplish anything.”

Voters’ concerns about the schools confront mayoral candidates at every turn in the campaign trail, and several contenders have made education one of their three or four main platform themes.

“I’m hearing about education and other issues involving young people wherever I go,” said Councilman Michael Woo.

“But it’s really about more than schools; it’s part of a much larger crisis about young people and their future, about this city’s future,” Woo added. He urged better coordination of local government services and said that as mayor he would put together a drive to improve local funding so cities, counties and school districts would not have to compete with each other for increasingly scarce tax dollars.

No topic has generated more heat, however, than the recent drive to dismantle the 640,000-student district and replace it with at least two, probably more, smaller districts. Councilman Joel Wachs pulled the breakup issue onto center stage in January by endorsing a controversial drive by state Senate Majority Leader David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) to slice the district into smaller entities of no more than 100,000 students each.

The idea has the strongest backing in the San Fernando Valley, where some have sought for years to secede from the nation’s second-largest district because they believe that it is too big to be efficient and responsive to students and parents. But opponents fear that a breakup would serve only to further splinter a city already divided along ethnic and economic lines.

Wachs has been buying full-page ads in the Daily News, which circulates mainly in the Valley, and in The Times’ Valley Edition to trumpet his support for the breakup. But he has toned down his message in citywide television commercials, which refer only to his “fight for the school system reorganization.”

Soon joining Wachs on the breakup bandwagon were Julian Nava, a Cal State Northridge history professor and a former school board member, and Councilman Nate Holden, who favors creating two districts by allowing the Valley to leave but opposes creating more, smaller entities. Richard Riordan, a businessman and attorney, once favored a separate Valley district, then changed his mind and advocated reforming the district while keeping it intact, and then in February switched to calling for the district to be broken into several parts.

Other major candidates--Woo, Katz, restaurateur Linda Griego, transit official and businessman Nick Patsaouras, and attorneys Stan Sanders and Tom Houston--oppose dividing up the district.

Only maverick Councilman Ernani Bernardi has held onto neutral ground, insisting that he will not take a stand until details of Roberti’s proposal are worked out. But he said he is “concerned that this breakup talk is not about the issue of educating children but more about a political agenda for some of the candidates.”

Talk of breaking up the district dismays the architects of a broad reform movement funded by local corporations and made up of community activists, business leaders and educators. Known as LEARN (Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now), the group won unanimous board approval last week to try its comprehensive formula for overhauling the district by giving more autonomy to schools in order to improve student achievement.

Although only one major candidate--Holden--has opposed the LEARN plan and most of the others have embraced it, three of its endorsers--Nava, Wachs and Riordan, who co-founded the reform organization two years ago--also are among those who want to split up the district.

Mike Roos, the former Assembly leader chosen by Riordan and other business leaders to head LEARN, said he is disappointed.

“From the beginning, it was clear we were designing a plan for the LAUSD as it is currently constituted. I would say that if you feel strongly about implementing LEARN, then implement it (as designed)--to make all the schools work for every child,” Roos said.

But Roos said he understands the seeming contradiction in the candidates’ positions in light of the political contest.

For his part, Riordan maintains that the LEARN reforms and the breakup are compatible, and that both are needed.

Crime and violence on campuses, school funding and wider community participation are other education-related issues that have surfaced during the campaign.

Holden proposed having the Los Angeles Police Department assist in patrolling campuses, and Katz said he would lobby for $1.7 million in state funds to put metal detectors in every high school and middle school. Sanders also favors metal detectors, to be paid for by city-created grants to violence-plagued schools.

Bernardi said he would take money from the Community Redevelopment Agency--which siphons tax money from schools, the county and other public agencies to pay for its projects--and give it to the district because “education should be our first priority.” Griego would use surplus city-owned land to build more schools. Houston would allow city employees to use sick leave to help out at their children’s schools and encourage businesses to do the same.

Other candidates called for stronger business involvement as a way to pay for services and programs. Holden would set up foundations to pay for athletics, the arts and science programs. Griego and Sanders called for expansion of business participation in the district’s “Adopt-a-School” and other partnership programs. Riordan, whose private foundation has donated money and computers to public and parochial schools in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, called for business-school partnerships to provide job training.

Several candidates--including Patsaouras, Riordan and Woo--said the city should help provide social services, after-school recreation and other child-support programs. Nava would add more early childhood programs, such as Head Start, because “we must support children, the earlier the better.”

Nearly everybody has promised to fight for better funding and called for greater public involvement in the schools; Sanders promised to spend at least an hour a week teaching on a public campus.

UCLA’s Mitchell welcomes the heightened interest in schools in the race to succeed Bradley but expressed concern that “the emphasis so far has been in denigrating” the district.

“The time for finger-pointing is over,” Mitchell said. “We need a mayor who can make it possible for the city and other agencies to connect with the schools in new ways that will help children. The approach has to be based on partnerships between the schools and the city. Any efforts that are about regulation, easy solutions or quick fixes will fail.”

Times education writer Stephanie Chavez contributed to this report.

PLAYING POLITICS: Homeless activist Ted Hayes was the favorite at a mayoral forum at Manual Arts High. B1

The L.A. Mayoral Race: Where They Stand

The 11 major candidates for mayor of Los Angeles have offered a number of proposals for improving city schools--an area over which the mayor technically has no authority. The candidates disagree on whether the Los Angeles Unified School District should be broken up. Here is a look at their views: THE CANDIDATES: ERNANI BERNARDI THEIR POSITIONS: No position on school district breakup. Favors advisory and supportive role for mayor. Would take money from the Community Redevelopment Agency and give it to schools and community colleges. THE CANDIDATES: LINDA GRIEGO THEIR POSITIONS: Against school district breakup. Would make city land available to school district. Would encourage businesses to participate in education through the Adopt-a-School program and by providing job training and jobs to graduates. Would work with federal government to get more funds for job training and vocational programs. THE CANDIDATES: NATE HOLDEN THEIR POSITIONS: Favors school district breakup. Would establish an educational liaison between the mayor and the Los Angeles Board of Education. Would set up separate, privately funded school foundations in athletics, science and the arts. Would institute a safe-school program, requiring patrol cars near schools each day for at least two hours before school starts and two hours after school ends. THE CANDIDATES: TOM HOUSTON THEIR POSITIONS: Against school district breakup. Would fight for increased federal and state funds, with the goal of reducing class size to 30. Advocates that all students be taught English before they are mainstreamed into classrooms. Would ask employers, including the city government, to allow parents to use unused sick leave in order to spend time in their children’s classrooms. THE CANDIDATES: RICHARD D. KATZ THEIR POSITIONS: Against school district breakup. Says he would use “bully pulpit” of mayor’s office to make children’s safety and education one of city’s highest priorities. Would declare each school a safety zone where guns and violence are forbidden. Would push to give more power to teachers, principals and parents at the school site level. THE CANDIDATES: JULIAN NAVA THEIR POSITIONS: Favors school district breakup. Would lobby for better funding at the state and national levels. Says he would promote “LEARN-like” initiatives. Advocates mandatory program of civic work experience before graduation for all capable high school students. THE CANDIDATES: NICK PATSAOURAS THEIR POSITIONS: Against school district breakup. Would launch an intensive campaign to bring the business sector into relationships with the schools. Says he would bring support services to the school site to improve access for students and their families. Would seek to increase understanding of multicultural diversity among students and parents by encouraging fairs, parades and other school events. THE CANDIDATES: RICHARD RIORDAN THEIR POSITIONS: Favors school district breakup. Advocates dividing it into districts of no more than 25 schools each. Favors implementation of the LEARN initiative. Favors setting of performance standards--such as test scores--within each school. THE CANDIDATES: STAN SANDERS THEIR POSITIONS: Against school district breakup. Would form a mayoral task force to identify innovative local and parental involvement. Would lead the coordination of private-sector partnership activities with the schools, including increased school adoption programs. Would lead the coordination of security measures between schools and city police. THE CANDIDATES: JOEL WACHS THEIR POSITIONS: Favors school district breakup. Would speak out for more educational resources. Favors LEARN proposals. Would seek to provide better security at schools. THE CANDIDATES: MICHAEL K. WOO THEIR POSITIONS: Against the school district breakup. Says he would be an advocate on behalf of school reforms and would provide services that supplement those of the school system. Supports implementation of LEARN’s recommendations for decentralization and greater local control over schools. Would continue funding for an after-school program that provides supervised activities for children during the afternoon. Researched by CECILIA RASMUSSEN