SUNLAND : Panelists Clash Over 2 Education Measures

The pros and cons of two controversial proposals that would radically change public education in Los Angeles were the subjects of a panel discussion in Sunland on Tuesday.

Participants traded jabs on state ballot Proposition 174, which would provide vouchers to parents to pay for education at either public or private schools. They also clashed on whether to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District.

School board member Jeff Horton discounted both solutions as missing the whole point of improving education. That, he said, could only happen in the classroom. He urged those present to give internal reforms a chance to work.

“I agree parent involvement is needed, but it has to happen at the school site,” Horton said. Even if the district is broken up, “we’re going to end up with the same problems in the classroom.”

“The real problem lies in our school system, not in our children,” countered Patricia Aleman Barulich, representing the Committee for Proposition 174.

Bruce Ambrose, a special education teacher at Verdugo Hills High School, spoke against Proposition 174, saying it was bad public policy to shift large amounts of funding from public schools to private institutions, which would be able to choose which students they would accept.

“Let’s get on with the business of reforming the schools, but don’t buy this pig in a poke,” she said.

Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills) was one of two speakers in favor of breaking up the Los Angeles school district. She has introduced a bill that would facilitate breaking up the district.

“The advantage with a smaller school system is that (administrators) will listen to the parents,” Boland said.