Boland’s LAUSD Breakup Bill Advances

A key Assembly committee overwhelmingly backed a bill Wednesday that increases the likelihood that Los Angeles voters may one day be asked whether they want to break up the city’s mammoth school district.

The bill lowers the number of signatures needed to put the breakup question on the ballot, making it easier for San Fernando Valley activists who favor dismantling the district to put the issue before voters.

For two decades, such a measure has been sought by Valley parents and others disenchanted with the quality of education in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which they contend is too big to operate efficiently.

The Assembly Appropriations Committee’s lopsided vote for the measure--10 members in favor and three opposed--infused the bill’s author with renewed hope that 1995 will be the year that she finally succeeds in getting it passed.

At the same time, Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills) expressed elation over steering the bill through the kind of committee that has traditionally been a burial ground for such measures.

“This is a dream,” said Boland, noting that for 4 1/2 years, she has tried to push the breakup in the state Legislature. “All I can think about is, ‘Yes, parents! Yes, parents!’ To have gotten so far is just a miracle.”

In the past, district breakup bills have stalled in Assembly policy panels, stopped by Democrats who followed Speaker Willie Brown’s lead in opposing the movement. Last session, a Boland bill met an abrupt demise in the Assembly Education Committee, never advancing past its first step in the legislative process.

But two local Democrats helped break the logjam Wednesday. Providing critical votes in favor of the measure were Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) and Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman (D-North Hollywood), both of whom voiced frustration with the district’s bureaucracy.

In response to a plea by a teachers union lobbyist not to “push a panic button” by voting for the bill, Katz replied: “The panic button on the quality of education at LAUSD should have been pushed dozens of times years and years and years ago.”

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The measure reduces the required number of signatures from 25% of all registered voters in the district to 8% of those in the district who voted in the last gubernatorial election. Boland noted that the 8% standard is the same test that proposed constitutional amendments face to win a spot on the ballot.

The bill also strips the school board of its authority to veto any election on the breakup issue.

To get the blessing of the Appropriations Committee, Boland had to convince panelists whose job it is to examine costs that the bill’s potential price tag was next to nothing. A state Department of Finance spokeswoman helped on that front, testifying that she saw no impact on the state budget.

But committee members opposed to the bill said they foresaw lots of costs in breaking up a district, and no guarantees of improvements in classroom teaching.

Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), noting that he is a former teachers union labor representative, said: “The bill does nothing to deliver education in a better way. Currently, California is 42nd in per-pupil spending. We’re 50th in class size. We’re 50th in the per capita expenditure of technology in our classrooms.”

Also speaking in opposition to the bill was the district’s representative, Ron Prescott, who said the bill unfairly singles out the district by providing lower signature requirements than apply to other districts.

Following the hearing, Boland was upbeat about the bill’s chances of winning approval from the full Assembly. In the nearly evenly divided Assembly--where Republicans have been trying to gain the edge over Democrats since January--every vote is critical.

If Boland can count on Katz and Friedman’s continued support, in addition to that of her Republican colleagues, she may finally overcome the roadblocks thrown out by Brown (D-San Francisco), a longtime friend of teacher unions.

Brown’s argument that dismantling the district could open the door to racial segregation should have less impact this year because of a bill by state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica).

The measure, a companion to the Boland bill, requires any new districts to comply with federal court orders mandating racial balances and funding equities. Hayden’s bill has been advancing through the state Senate with the backing of the Los Angeles district.

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On Wednesday, Friedman appeared unwavering in her support, contrasting Pacoima’s widely acclaimed Vaughn Street School, formally known as Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, against what she pictured as the Los Angeles district’s dismal performance elsewhere.

Noting that the elementary school’s success is largely attributed to Principal Yvonne Chan, Friedman chided district administrators for failing to harness Chan’s leadership skills and teach them to principals at other campuses.

“Why is Vaughn so fabulous? It has parent involvement. It has teacher involvement,” Friedman said. “And the reason they were able to bring that together is because of Yvonne Chan, because of a principal who has incredible personal qualities and leadership qualities.

“I’ve talked to a number of principals,” she said. “The best that they have to say about the L. A. Unified district is that they know how to get around it.”