Schools Breakup Measure Signed : Education: Wilson’s action will reduce the ballot requirements for those wanting to dismantle the massive Los Angeles Unified district. Critics are quick to react.

In a ringing triumph for longtime critics of the mammoth Los Angeles Unified School District, Gov. Pete Wilson signed into law Wednesday a bill that will ease the way for dissatisfied voters to carve up the nation’s second-largest school system.

At an afternoon ceremony in his office, Wilson brought closer to fruition a campaign dating back at least a quarter of a century, when detractors of the 708-square-mile district first suggested splintering it into smaller units.

The new law, effective Jan. 1, moves the breakup movement--which has long drawn its main strength from the San Fernando Valley--into a new era, with fewer hindrances on those who favor dismantling the 640,000-student system.

The bill, by Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills), dramatically lowers the signature requirement for qualifying a ballot measure to reconfigure the district, effectively cutting the threshold from 386,000 signatures to 72,000.

It also eliminates perhaps the biggest obstacle to a breakup: the Los Angeles Board of Education’s veto power over any proposals to shrink the district’s boundaries.

“Ding dong, the veto’s dead,” exulted Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica).

“The people now have that significant barrier removed, and it’s up to them,” said Hayden, who has written companion legislation to protect racial and socioeconomic integration in any new districts created by divvying up Los Angeles Unified. Wilson has pledged to sign Hayden’s bill as well, probably by the end of next week, an aide said.

A jubilant Boland declared, “I’m beside myself,” with happiness.

“This is something that parents have begged for and the children have needed for 20 years,” she said.

Noting that the system covers an area “approximately the size of Rhode Island,” Wilson said his action would afford parents “the kind of participation that they don’t think possible with such a huge district.”

But his support of the bills immediately drew fire from the same groups that have blocked breakup proposals for years on the grounds that allowing some areas to secede would Balkanize the city and create separate but unequal schools for the haves and have-nots.

Even proponents of dismantling the district agree that the legislation is no sure promise of an improvement in student achievement, which has fallen to new lows in the district over the past several years.

“Show me how a breakup is going to [encourage] student achievement, parent involvement and teacher accountability,” said Marshall Diaz, head of a Latino civil rights group. “If you can show me exactly how the breakup could be utilized to achieve these objectives, then it’s something we can talk about and support.”

Diaz and other anti-breakup activists also contend that minorities could be shut out of the political process in smaller school districts in such areas as the western San Fernando Valley and the Westside.

Parents in those communities have long been disenchanted with the sprawling school system, which they describe as too bloated to administer effectively or promote local involvement.

Proposals first surfaced 27 years ago to split up the district, but ultimately failed, including one legislative attempt vetoed in 1970 by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan. The breakup movement was renewed with increased intensity two years ago by Valley residents upset by a school board reapportionment plan.

The bill signed Wednesday lowers the signature requirement for a breakup petition from 25% to 8% of votes cast in the district in the last gubernatorial race.

“This finally gives the community a chance to say, ‘It’s not working and we want to fix it,’ ” said Harriet Sculley, past president of the 31st District Parent Teacher Student Assn., which covers the Valley.

“It’s about time that parents were able to take charge, and this is a means for doing it,” added Carolyn Harris, a Carson resident who wants her city to secede from the Los Angeles system and run its own schools.

While celebrating their victory, proponents of a breakup also acknowledged that perhaps an even more difficult task lies ahead: actually formulating a breakup plan.

Legal challenges remain, such as ensuring that any successor districts adhere to Hayden’s bill by preserving desegregation policies, equal-funding agreements and other protections for minority students. Such conditions could make it impossible for areas with greater concentration of white students, like the Westside, to form their own school systems.

“The legal issues alone will generate millions of dollars for lawyers,” predicted school board member Jeff Horton, an opponent of the breakup campaign.

“If someone takes action to develop a breakup plan that we really believe . . . is detrimental to the young people, we may have to consider some action,” added district Supt. Sid Thompson.

Helen Bernstein, president of the Los Angeles teachers union, which has lobbied strongly against breakup legislation, questioned whether dividing the district would accomplish anything more than replicate “little L.A. Unifieds all over the place.”

“It’s like the Soviet Union. They broke it up and now, I think, it’s worse. This is not the answer,” Bernstein said.

The breakup concept has also been attacked by civil rights organizations such as the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union, who call it a racially motivated way to consign inner-city students to inferior schooling.

That argument was enough to sway then-Assembly Speaker Willie L. Brown to kill legislation in 1993 that also would have paved the way for a breakup. But the end of Brown’s control of the Assembly last November created a friendlier climate to breakup-related bills, especially after Boland, a staunch conservative, teamed with Hayden, an equally staunch liberal.

Hayden’s bill would also enact safeguards for the ambitious LEARN decentralization reforms now under way on nearly 200 campuses. The district’s charter schools, which are freed of most district control to follow policies set by parents and teachers, also would be protected.

Charter schools, not a district breakup, have been the goal of Westside parents in the quest for more local control.

Kathleen Milnes, a parent at Marquez Elementary School in Pacific Palisades, said she and other parents would continue to work toward establishing a single charter for all the elementary and junior high schools attached to Palisades High School.

“That actually gives us a lot more freedom than even being our own district,” she said.

Times staff writer Max Vanzi contributed to this story.

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What’s Next

Gov. Pete Wilson’s signature Wednesday on a schools breakup bill is just one of several steps toward division of the district. Among them:

* Petitions for breaking up the district are drafted by supporters and signatures are gathered.

* Completed petitions are filed with the Los Angeles County Office of Education. The county has 20 days to examine them to make sure they meet legal requirements and the signatures are valid. If so, they are passed on to the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization, comprising appointees from school districts throughout the county.

* Committee has 60 days to hold at least one public hearing in the district, after which it makes a recommendation to the State Board of Education.

* The state board then considers the breakup plan. The law imposes no deadline within which the board must act. It must hold public hearings. If the board approves, the county superintendent of schools must call an election. If the board disapproves, no vote is held.

* The state board also must decide who votes on the breakup proposals--whether it is only the voters in the areas seeking independence, or all registered voters in the school district.

* Measure needs to be approved by a simple majority of voters--50% plus one.

Source: Los Angeles Unified School District.