Roberti Ready for Long Fight on School Split

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

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 sets up a 26-member citizens commission to study how best to break up the vast district, and then puts their plan before voters in November, 1994.

Critics say it is the citizens commission, however, that may prove one of the biggest stumbling blocks for Roberti. In what may foreshadow debate in the Assembly, senators who opposed the bill--which handily passed the Senate on Thursday--said they don’t 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 continue to 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.

While Roberti’s plan does not specify who will serve on the citizens commission, it does provide a rough outline of the commission and who gets to appoint its members.

Seven of the panel members will be local educators representing the ethnic polyglot that is today’s Los Angeles. At least seven more will be parents of district students. Four will be district union representatives. A handful probably will be bureaucrats. At least one business person will be seated. And one principal will be included.

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

Here’s who gets to pick the panel members, and how many selections they have:

* One person each will be selected by Mayor-elect Richard Riordan, the City Council, the California School Employees Assn. and Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union. One principal will be chosen by the Los Angeles school district. One person who lives in a city outside of Los Angeles, but where students attend district schools, will be chosen by a local League of California Cities chapter.

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

* Seven members will be appointed by the school district’s seven education commissions, with each board selecting one. The education commissions are advisory boards addressing the needs of seven interest groups--African American, Asian American, Latino, American Indian, gay and lesbian, disabled people and women.

* One parent will 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 will invite a representative from LEARN, the reform effort that opposes the break-up 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 faces a July 1, 1994, deadline to produce a plan for the following November’s ballot. If they fail, the state superintendent of public instruction will 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 that diversity will be guaranteed because groups will 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 probably will 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.

Hurdles Ahead for School District Breakup

Although a measure to break up the massive Los Angeles Unified School District has been passed by the Senate, there are more steps required before the action can be made final:

* The Senate-approved measure must go to an Assembly committee for review.

* If approved by the committee, it would then go to the Assembly floor for adoption.

* The measure, if approved by the Assembly, would require the governor’s signature.

* If amended by the Assembly, the bill either goes back to Senate members or to a joint Senate-Assembly conference committee then back to both houses for a vote before it goes to the governor.

* A 26-member commission would decide on a specific plan to split up the district. The plan is due by July 1, 1994, or the state superintendent of instruction will get the task.

* Voters then decide whether to adopt the plan in an election Nov. 8, 1994.

* If approved by the voters, the new districts would go into effect on July 1, 1995.

Source: Senate Rules Committee analysis