Roberti Expects Bitter Fight on School Breakup

Anticipating a bruising battle in the Assembly, state Sen. David A. Roberti conceded this week that he may be forced to drag out his crusade to dismantle the Los Angeles school district over two years.

The Senate leader, a Democrat from Van Nuys, said he intends to push his legislation as far as it will go in the session that is scheduled to end Sept. 10. But if it stalls in a committee, thwarted by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), he will settle for bringing it up again next year.

“The Speaker clearly is against it. I did bring up the two-year idea as a question of tactics,” Roberti said in an interview. “One aspect of a two-year bill is that it would give the district time to fall apart.”

Roberti’s measure would split into at least seven parts the 640,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District, which has more pupils than Vermont has residents. It would set up a 26-member citizens commission to study how best to break up the vast district, and then put the plan before voters in November, 1994.

Critics say the citizens commission may prove one of the biggest obstacles for Roberti. In what may foreshadow debate in the Assembly, senators who opposed the bill--which handily passed the Senate on Thursday--said they do not want to cede authority to a panel whose members have yet to be named.

“I don’t know anything about this commission. I don’t know where they are coming from or how they view the world and view education,” Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) said Friday. “Why should I want to give over my authority and my oversight to some citizens who don’t have to be accountable?”

Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) said he will have misgivings until more is known about the commission. “I hope it will be addressed in the Assembly in a substantive way,” he said Friday.

Although Roberti’s plan does not specify who would serve on the citizens commission, it does outline the commission and who gets to appoint its members.

Seven of the panel members would be local educators, representing the ethnic polyglot that is Los Angeles. At least seven more would be parents of district students. Four would be district union representatives. A handful of bureaucrats probably would be included, and at least one business person and one principal.

“I think the diversity is there,” said Terry Burns, Roberti’s legislative expert on education. “Or certainly the opportunity for diversity is there.”

Here is who would get to pick the panel members, and how many selections they would have:

* Mayor-elect Richard Riordan, the City Council, the California School Employees Assn. and Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union would each select one person. One principal would be chosen by the Los Angeles school district. One person who lives in a city outside of Los Angeles that is served by the district would be chosen by a local California League of Cities chapter.

* Two people, at least one of them a business person, would be selected by Los Angeles County supervisors, two by United Teachers-Los Angeles--the union that represents district teachers--and two parents by the Parent Teachers Assn.

* Seven members would be appointed by the school district’s seven education commissions, with each board selecting one. The commissions are advisory boards representing African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos, American Indians, gays and lesbians, disabled people and women.

*One parent would be appointed by each of the seven Los Angeles school board members.

Senators persuaded Roberti to alter the bill in the Assembly to include representatives from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People or other civil rights organizations. In addition, Roberti would invite a representative from the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now, the reform effort that opposes the breakup but is pushing for more decision-making powers at individual schools.

MALDEF education director Teresa Bustillo said Friday that her group, which opposes Roberti’s bill, is studying whether to accept the invitation. “Our concern is how this might impact our ability to challenge the plan in court. We have to weigh everything before we decide,” she said.

If the measure becomes law, the commission will start meeting in January. It would have a July 1, 1994, deadline for producing a plan for the following November’s ballot. If they failed, the state superintendent of public instruction would step in to finish the blueprint, relying on the panel’s input.

The state schools chief would also be charged with overseeing appointments of citizens to the panel “in order to encourage ethnic, gender and geographic diversity,” Roberti’s bill says.

Burns contends diversity would be guaranteed because groups would tap their own representatives. “I can’t imagine (Los Angeles school board President) Leticia Quesada picking a white male to represent her board,” she said.

If a bitter fight in the Assembly slows Roberti’s crusade to break up the district, the targeted November, 1994, election date would probably be pushed back.

“If that happens, we may have to look at a special election. Every year we don’t do it, another first grade is lost,” Burns said.