Breakup Plans for L.A. School District

Your March 23 article on the likely effects of a breakup of L.A. Unified School District left me puzzled. Most of the dire consequences you predict seem to be predicated on the assumption that transfer students who now fuel integration plans will return to their newly created home districts after a breakup. But why would this happen? If, as you say, they have done intra-district transfers in order to escape crowding or to seek a better education, why would they not file for inter-district transfers after the breakup?

The evidence you offer suggests that both the overcrowded home district and the underenrolled receiving district would be happy to expedite the paperwork.

CINDY COTTER

Whittier

* Your article overlooked an important given about the Valley--that a huge number of students enrolled in private school would return to public classrooms if neighborhood schools were the rule here again. Instead, taking current enrollment and redistributing those numbers geographically, The Times comes to the incorrect conclusion that the Valley would have a significant surplus of classrooms if children were no longer brought in from other areas.

Not so. The defining issue of the exodus of young families of all ethnicities on working-class Valley streets like mine has been the lack of quality elementary education in the neighborhood, as a result of busing in non-English-speaking children. It has been more than a decade since a child living on my street has gone to the local elementary school. Any family that could has moved west to Calabasas, Thousand Oaks and beyond when their kids approached school age. The rest make tremendous sacrifices to get their kids to costly private schools or faraway magnet schools.

But here’s what’s really important: Lost forever is the socialization children receive from a sense of belonging to the neighborhood. Most Valley parents were educated in neighborhood public schools and yearn to be able to provide that same inimitable sense of stability and commitment for their children.

JOAN H. LEONARD

Sherman Oaks

* Your article goes on and on about the school district breakup. One of the big negative items mentioned is that the district would lose $333 million in government funds. Right on! Exactly what the people want! Less spending of taxpayers’ money!

When are these liberals going to get the message that we are the government? We want less spending, we want less waste, we want less taxes, we want less government.

FRANCIS JANSEN

Northridge