Plan Filed for ‘Inner City’ School District

A South Los Angeles group that is intent on severing ties with the Los Angeles Unified School District on Thursday filed the first breakaway proposal under streamlined state legislation.

The proposed boundary map filed with the county Office of Education shows an Inner City Unified School District about one-fifth the size of Los Angeles Unified. The proposed district stretches roughly from Olympic Boulevard to the Century Freeway and would include 125,000 students at 123 schools.

The drive to split off South Los Angeles began last summer, when a group of frequent critics of L.A. Unified met to talk about their dissatisfaction with the sprawling school system.

“There’s no academic performance in the inner city. Our kids are not learning,” said Sylvester Hinton, a spokesman for the organization. “We have inferior textbooks and not enough textbooks. . . . Reform just isn’t happening here. There’s so much wrong.”

Although the San Fernando Valley has been the center of the breakup movement for years, Valley groups have made little headway in recent months.

And as the South-Central Los Angeles parents took action on their proposal, politicians moved to quell Valley concerns that the local breakup effort has stalled. Mayor Richard Riordan on Thursday made good on an earlier promise by putting up $40,000 of his own money to start a breakup review group at UCLA.

Mayoral aide Greg Dawley said Riordan will also try to raise money to fund the UCLA effort.

Aides to the mayor said the effort is designed to provide supporters with a clearinghouse through which they can test their plans before embarking on the process of dismantling the district.

“It’s essentially a complex research project,” Dawley said.

But aides also cautioned that the process will take time--up to three years before a plan is ultimately put before voters.

Several Valley parents who have long fought to break up the district say political leadership has been slow to show concrete support for the proposals.

Stephanie Carter, a breakup activist, said she has convened a community meeting Saturday to “get the ball rolling.” Valley parents have waited long enough to split off local schools, Carter said.

Along with breakup supporter Diana Dixon-Davis, Carter hopes to create a task force to draft an initiative for separate Valley school districts.

Legislation by Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills) that took effect Jan. 1 reduced the number of signatures required to support such a proposal.

Both Boland and Riordan have said they will craft a districtwide breakup plan, but backers have complained that no progress is being made. Aides to the mayor and Boland, however, deny that the movement has stalled. Boland spokesman Scott Wilk said the issue is still important to Boland but it will take time to accomplish.

Meanwhile, the San Fernando Valley Parent Teacher Student Assn. this month plans to unveil drafts of three breakup proposals compiled by task forces. The PTA then plans to poll its members to determine interest.

The UCLA group will first examine the plans from breakup supporters in Carson and then develop criteria to use in studying other plans. Carson was the first area of the Los Angeles district to develop a breakaway plan.

The group of educators will examine legal issues--such as integration and funding--as well as academic questions, said Ted Mitchell, dean of UCLA’s School of Education.

“We’re trying to give them a study guide for the issues they need to consider if they want to do this seriously,” Mitchell said.

“Too much of the breakup energy is a reaction against something rather than a thoughtful, planned attempt to achieve better education for the kids,” he said.

Mitchell emphasized that his group will remain neutral on breakup proposals, concentrating on ensuring that “people ask the right questions. . . . We will hold up a mirror to those plans.”

LAUSD officials have countered the movement with publicity about their reform efforts. Last fall, Supt. Sid Thompson announced a five-year plan to improve student achievement.