LAUSD Needs Reforms, Not Breakup Plan : The district has problems, but atomizing it would only lead to more bureaucracy, bigger classes and the stifling of ongoing improvement efforts.

United Teachers Los Angeles opposes the proposed breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District because it is not about educational reform and better education. It is solely about creating more school boards for more politicians to run for. It would give us more bureaucracy, less reform and bigger classes.

We know that in frustration with the district, many of our members just throw up their hands and say, “Atomize it, it can’t get any worse.” The officers and leaders of UTLA share this frustration, for which there are two prime reasons--neither of which would be addressed by breaking up the LAUSD.

First is the lack of financial support for education from Sacramento. California is now more than $1,000 below the national average in per-pupil spending and our state ranks 40th out of 50.

Second is the lack of support from individual administrators who are not cooperative in helping us deliver our product--education--to our students.

*

UTLA understands that it is not enough in this debate to “just say no” to the breakup. People expect us to be for alternatives that are better and are in the public interest. That is why UTLA has been in the forefront of supporting systemic school reforms--including school-based management, the right of school communities to enter LEARN, the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Reform Now, and the creation of nine charter schools in the LAUSD. In addition, UTLA supports 100% a bill by state Sen. Bill Leonard (R-San Bernardino) that will mandate that 95% of all district funds be spent on the school site on direct services to students. It is scheduled for a committee hearing this week.

After careful analysis we believe that a breakup will increase class size and throw a monkey wrench into reform efforts in our community. Data published by the California Department of Finance shows that the administrative cost of the LAUSD is more than 2% lower than the average administrative cost of all unified school districts, the next 10 largest and the next 20 largest districts after the LAUSD in the state. We believe that a breakup and the multiple bureaucracies it would create would add more than $78 million to the cost of school district administration in our community. This “administrative tax” for a breakup would require the elimination of more than 1,500 teaching positions and, as a result, class size would increase. The reform efforts now well under way in the LAUSD will have to be replicated and restarted in each of the “new” districts.

*

In addition to added administrative costs, increased class size and a setback or halt in the reform effort, the breakup would ensure multiple court cases, foster racial and ethnic arguments over where to draw the lines of the new districts and cause arguments over inter-district busing because the west San Fernando Valley does not have enough students for its schools while other sections of our community have too many.

UTLA officers attend numerous teacher conferences across the state. Teachers we talk to from other districts do not look upon the LAUSD as a giant to be broken up. They see the LAUSD as the one district in the state that is head and shoulders above all the rest in terms of the amount of educational reform that is going on. Whether they like or dislike what they hear about reform in Los Angeles, they know that people are trying new and different things in an effort to reform our school system.

On a personal note, as a lifelong Valley resident (I attended the Burbank public schools and graduated from Cal State Northridge) and as a parent with one daughter at Van Nuys High and another at Strathern Street School, I am convinced that a breakup will harm, not help, children’s education and public schools.