Parents to Discuss Plan to Break Up L.A. Schools : Education: After defeat in Assembly committee, backers regroup. Roberti stops short of endorsing statewide initiative plan.

Undeterred by rejection in a key Assembly committee, backers of legislation to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District on Thursday announced a so-called parents summit to map their plans, which might include mounting a statewide initiative drive.

“Please understand that every dollar that goes into the black hole of the Los Angeles Unified School District is taken out of someone else’s school,” said Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills), who said she would push for a ballot measure at an all-day parents summit planned for Aug. 7 in the San Fernando Valley.

At a Capitol news conference, she was joined by Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys), author of the breakup bill, who voiced sympathy for the initiative but stopped short of fully embracing the proposal.

Roberti described an initiative as “a reasonable way to go. It’s an aggressive way to go” but said he wants to weigh all options with other supporters in the breakup movement before making a decision.

Supporters were dealt a setback Wednesday when the Assembly Education Committee defeated Roberti’s bill, which would have established a 32-member commission to create at least seven districts and put the plan on the November, 1994, ballot.

Roberti made it clear that the rejection would not stop the campaign to dismantle the 640,000-student district.

“The parents’ crusade to break up the LAUSD and bring a better quality of education to our children is unstoppable,” Roberti said.

Indeed, the call for the parents summit and an initiative drive escalates the increasingly contentious and divisive fight over the future of education in Los Angeles schools, the nation’s second-largest district.

An initiative would move the breakup drive--which has been viewed as a purely Los Angeles issue--into a statewide arena and probably cost backers $1 million just to land a spot on the ballot in June or November of 1994.

School Board President Leticia Quezada said that talk about a statewide ballot initiative “will fizzle out.”

William Lambert, a lobbyist for United Teachers-Los Angeles, criticized the initiative proposal.

“I don’t believe it’s in the interest of Los Angeles or the state for one part of the state to vote on matters affecting other parts of the state,” Lambert said. He questioned whether Boland is “suggesting that people in Los Angeles can help choose the police chief in Sacramento. It’s kind of going overboard.”

UTLA President Helen Bernstein dismissed Boland’s assertion that Los Angeles is siphoning money from other districts, and said Los Angeles does not get the most money per student of districts in California.

Union officials said breakup backers already have an avenue to put the issue on the local ballot--by persuading the school board, which opposes the split, to initiate a reorganization. They could also secure the signatures of 25% of the district’s more than 1.3 million registered voters and then get the Los Angeles County Office of Education to recommend the breakup.

Roberti said he would review both a districtwide or statewide ballot measure.

Melissa Warren, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State March Fong Eu, said she could not recall a statewide initiative tailored to a specific geographic area such as Los Angeles. But, she said, “there is no limitation on the subject matter of initiatives.”

Warren said backers would need to collect the signatures of 385,000 registered voters--5% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election--to qualify for a spot on the ballot in June or November of 1994. Roberti released only sketchy details of the parents summit, saying he had spent the 18 hours after Wednesday’s committee action discussing plans with Boland and others seeking to split up the district, including Councilmen Joel Wachs and Hal Bernson.

Although the meeting will be in the Valley, Roberti said, parents from throughout the district will be invited to attend the session, which he hopes will be televised.

Roberti dismissed suggestions that he is continuing the crusade to advance his political career--a career that must take a new path after next year when he is barred by term limits from seeking reelection.

Quezada said that with the Roberti legislation defeated, school reformers can turn their attention to what she said is the real threat to public education--the school voucher initiative on the November ballot.

Backers of the initiative to create state-funded vouchers to spend on private school tuition said they hope to enlist disgruntled parents who had backed the breakup bill.

Sean Walsh, a spokesman for Excellence Through Choice in Education, which is organizing the voucher effort, said the group will make a special effort to reach San Fernando Valley voters who supported the Roberti bill.