Is It Too Late for School District Breakup?

Maybe the summer doldrums really are to blame. That’s one of the theories offered by activists frustrated that the crusade to break up the giant Los Angeles Unified School District, once the hottest issue in L.A., isn’t so hot any more.

No doubt about it, this movement has lost the Big Mo. Dedicated district-busters say it’s not dying, just dormant. Once the kids are back in school--the ones, presumably, who aren’t on year-round schedules--the parents will again focus their attention on reforming the schools. That’s their hope, anyway.

But maybe, just maybe, the moment has passed. The blacksmith’s metaphor may apply here: Strike while the iron is hot. But instead of dismantling and hammering out the ultimate reshaping of the L.A. school system, the city’s political will has been distracted and dissipated by Assemblywoman Paula Boland’s dubious, flawed bill aimed at dividing the city of Los Angeles.

Consider Mayor Riordan. A year ago, he was using his office as a bully pulpit for the LAUSD breakup. This year, the Boland bill, recently defeated in the state Senate, had Riordan talking out of three sides of his mouth. He said he opposes secession and wouldn’t lobby for or against the Boland bill, but supports “our citizens’ right to self-determination”--without saying whether all Angelenos should get to vote on such a matter. Got that? The school district, meanwhile, has become an afterthought.

That may be too bad, because there have always been better reasons to break up the school district than to break up the city.

The arguments are often the same. “L.A. is just too damn big,” secessionists from Sylmar to San Pedro say. With more than 3.5 million residents in 465 square miles of urban sprawl, L.A. is nothing if not big.

But remember, Los Angeles Unified is bigger--much bigger, in fact, with more than 4.3 million residents in a region of 708 square miles. Take the city boundaries and add several unincorporated areas plus the cities of San Fernando, West Hollywood, Huntington Park, South Gate, Maywood, Bell, Cudahy, Carson, Gardena and Lomita. That’s the LAUSD.

Angelenos, yearning for a stronger sense of community, complain that City Hall is too remote. We elect a mayor and a city attorney at-large, and 15 council members by district. But it’s tough being heard, people agree, when there’s only one council member for every 235,000 residents.

But democratic representation is even weaker in the school district, even though nothing unites a neighborhood more than the neighborhood schools. Only seven board members represent the public, all elected by area. That’s about one for every 620,000 residents.

In smaller districts, board members tend to be elected at large; it’s common to bump into them at prep football and basketball games. In the LAUSD, it’s more common to receive campaign mailers as they try to advance their political careers. Kathleen Brown, Bobbi Fiedler, Diane Watson, Rita Walters and Jackie Goldberg are among the pols who got their start on the LAUSD board. Current members Mark Slavkin and Julie Korenstein pursued other offices unsuccessfully.

None of this would matter much, of course, if test scores were soaring and truancy were low. Concerns about the quality of education are the foremost reason that serious breakup efforts ignited not just in the Valley but in several pockets south of Mulholland Drive. Reformers in Lomita and Carson, in fact, have made the most progress in efforts to pull out of the LAUSD.

But meanwhile, several breakup groups have fizzled. Without leadership from someone like Riordan--or even the unlikely duo of Boland and state Sen. Tom Hayden, whose joint bills established the process for the district’s dismantling--this movement has slowed to a crawl.

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For those determined to dismantle L.A. Unified, the next few months are critical. The Lomita and Carson groups have gathered their signatures. In the Valley, Boland has said she’ll refocus her efforts from the city government to the school district. Common sense says that breaking up the school district should be easier than breaking up the city, if only because there is so much more political will. But activists are discovering just how daunting this task remains.

But there are other reasons to think the time may have passed--and some them are heartening. The ballyhooed LEARN and charter school reforms, both of which are intended to enhance autonomy and public accountability at the school level, are showing promising results. City Hall, meanwhile, has its parallel in dueling campaigns for charter reforms. Mayor Riordan wants to dramatically increase the mayor’s power. No wonder school reform doesn’t seem so interesting.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Please include a phone number.

There have always been better reasons to break up the school district than to break up the city.