Pair Cut School Breakup Debate Down to Size : Education: Activists appeal to legislators with catchy one-liners showing how huge district really is.

If nothing else hammers home the idea that the Los Angeles Unified School District is, well, big , consider the mental picture formed by this statement:

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If Supt. Sid Thompson were to hold a reception for LAUSD’s 61,224 employees, it’d have to be in the Rose Bowl. Dodger Stadium would be too small.

Or this:

To spend five minutes talking to each employee, he’d have to set aside 5,102 hours.

Even this:

If every employee were to stand two feet apart, the reception line would stretch over 23 miles.

If these scenarios fail to elicit a visual image of exactly how vast the Los Angeles school system is, Diana Dixon Davis has more up her sleeve. Pages more.

A demographer by trade, Davis, a Chatsworth mother of three, has developed a five-page fact sheet designed to expose what she sees as a bloated Los Angeles school district through the statistics, analogies and extrapolations she compiles. In her quest to obtain legislation to help dismantle the district, Davis spreads them like gospel every chance she gets.

“A lot of people forget how big LAUSD is,” Davis says. “But when I throw these numbers out, it’s sort of the ‘gee whiz’ factor. I get a reaction.”

The strategy has taken hold in the state Capitol, where Davis and her partner, Tarzana parent activist Stephanie Carter, have made inroads with their series of catchy Ripley’s Believe-It-or-Not-style one-liners.

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On the eve of today’s crucial state Senate vote on a school breakup bill, the factoids have become part of Capitol lore, oft-repeated in floor debates, committee hearings and hallway conversations.

Even legislators borrow liberally from the duo’s repertoire when they want to make a point about the need to downsize or split the district. Davis’ research has been incorporated into bill language. And it is the basis for 5,000 flyers printed and distributed by Democratic state Sen. Tom Hayden, who is sponsoring one of two measures moving through the Legislature that would make it easier to break up the district.

Duane Peterson, Hayden’s chief of staff, said Davis has brought a sharper focus to the debate over legislation making it easier to qualify the school breakup issue for the ballot.

For one thing, he said, her “talking points” help lawmakers steer clear of the “legal gobbledygook” that often bogs down deliberations. “It’s real people like Diana who both know the issue and can communicate it in creative plain English that can save the day,” Peterson said.

One person who is not so sure Davis and Carter are on point is Ron Prescott, the school district’s chief lobbyist in Sacramento, who says the problem lies more with crowded school campuses than with the size of the district.

Still, he is careful not to criticize Carter and Davis for their outspokenness. “People who feel strongly should not be stifled in their efforts for change,” Prescott said.

It was Davis who began compiling the statistics, and Carter who persuaded her to distribute the fact sheets in Sacramento and made sure the information traveled along the legislative grapevine.

“You always repeat that the size of the district is 708 square miles and you always say 640,000 students,” Carter said. “It’s very difficult for people to visualize. I think repeating them over and over again finally does click with people at some point.”

It helps even more, Davis said, to give people “something they can relate to . . . from their everyday experiences. They’ve been to Dodger Stadium, they’ve been to the Rose Bowl. So they know what that means.”

When you say 708 square miles, Davis notes, you might mention that that’s about the size of Rhode Island. And when you refer to enrollment figures, you can also note that the Los Angeles district is five times as big as the next-largest school district in California.

Or, says Carter, note that the district stretches 75 miles from end to end, about the distance from Sacramento to the Bay Area.

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Davis admits she gets a kick out of harvesting databases, from U.S. Census statistical analyses to the phone book, but says her motive goes beyond her fascination with numbers.

She has a son in elementary school, one in junior high and one in high school. “I’m really concerned about the academic achievement in the district. That’s my guiding force,” she said.

She and Carter believe the school district would be more accountable to parents and students if it were smaller, and that would lead to improvement in student performance.

A parent and former elementary school teacher, Carter is a leader of the breakup movement and has frequently flown to Sacramento to testify in favor of the Assembly bill scheduled to come up before the Senate for a vote today.

The measure, by Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills), lowers--from 386,000 to roughly 72,000--the number of qualifying signatures needed to place the breakup issue on a districtwide ballot, and removes the school board’s power to veto a breakup proposal once it qualifies for the ballot.

If it clears its final hurdle today, the bill will probably be signed into law by Gov. Pete Wilson, who has already indicated his support for it.

When the Senate takes up the bill today, Prescott plans to argue that it is unconstitutional because it singles out the Los Angeles school system. If that tactic fails, and the Senate approves the measure, he will harbor no ill will toward the crusading Carter and Davis, he said.

“I really believe that people that want change are people of good will,” Prescott said. “I don’t question their motivation.”