Education Dean, Alarcon Endorse School Breakup

In the latest round of the debate to break up the massive Los Angeles Unified School District, a top San Fernando Valley educator and a city councilman representing the northeast San Fernando Valley on Tuesday endorsed efforts to create smaller city school systems.

Carolyn Ellner, dean of the School of Education at Cal State Northridge, and Councilman Richard Alarcon of the 7th District, expressed support for efforts to dismantle the school district as a way of improving local education.

They made their comments during the taping of a program sponsored by the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. to be shown Sunday on Channel 15 on the United Artists Cable system.

“I do believe, and I’ve always believed, that smaller is better,” Ellner said.” You can achieve more if the decisions are closer to the schools. . . . I don’t see anything wrong with examining the breakup . . . and creating smaller districts.”

The breakup movement is gaining interest throughout the city as Gov. Pete Wilson prepares to sign legislation making it easier for voters to dismantle the Los Angeles district--the nation’s second-largest.

Wilson has said that within a week he will sign two bills related to a district breakup. One, by Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills), will lower the threshold of signatures required to qualify a breakup proposal for he ballot. And a companion bill by state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) maintains funding and racial guidelines for reorganized districts.

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On Tuesday, the local group Valley Advocates for Local Unified Education (VALUE) held its first brainstorming session since its unsuccessful effort to dismantle the city school district two years ago.

The 10 VALUE members attending decided they need much more information and they want to include groups from across the district, not just the Valley, in their efforts to dismantle the school system.

“The most valuable thing right now is access to information,” said Linda Jones, a member of the group and a longtime breakup supporter. “We need the right information up front. . . . This is not going to be an overnight thing. If we want to do it right, it’s going to take some time.”

The group said that they want to hold informational meetings around the district and hope that legislators like Boland and Hayden will help bring various community and parent groups together.

“If we have the first meeting in the Valley,” Jones said, “then it will confirm everyone’s suspicions that it’s a Valley thing.”

At the television taping, a panel agreed that smaller districts would improve education and bring decision-making closer to each campus.

Joe Lucente, co-director of the Fenton Avenue Charter School in Lake View Terrace and the moderator of the discussion, said his experience in running a school independent of district interference has convinced him that smaller school systems are more efficient. The charter school, one of two in the Valley, is empowered by state law to decide on budgets, hiring and scheduling.

Lucente said his school is among 18 in the area that meet regularly and could form a separate district.

Alarcon, in supporting a plan to break up the district, said he believes that parents--particularly in the northeast Valley--are removed from the decision makers in the district’s Downtown headquarters.

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“Today, if some parent in Pacoima had a problem and wanted to go to the school board, they would have to drive 30 miles,” Alarcon said. “I don’t think too many people even know where the school district is.”

But Associate Supt. Ron Prescott, the district’s Sacramento lobbyist, said the argument falls short. If that were true, Prescott said, “then we need to break up the city of Los Angeles. That same parent would have a problem getting to the City Council.”

Prescott said that smaller districts do not necessarily teach children better and large districts have several advantages--including greater political power.