Mayors Are Called Best Hope to Reform Troubled Schools

Bolstered by the reported progress of schools in Boston and Chicago, several of the nation’s big-city mayors Wednesday touted strong mayoral control over education as the most promising way to turn around troubled school districts, a controversial notion that Mayor Richard Riordan has championed but declined to endorse for Los Angeles.

Appearing at a first-of-its-kind summit conference of school superintendents and mayors, Riordan pointedly highlighted the educational experiments underway in Boston and Chicago, where city chief executives have been given broad authority to set school budgets, hire and fire top education officials, and intervene in a broad range of educational issues.

Riordan has no such powers and has not sought any, but on Wednesday he approvingly cited the experience of those mayors who do.

“I think the revolutions taking place in Chicago and Boston are the most important thing happening in education since I’ve been involved,” Riordan said to the conference delegates. Those cities, he added, have “put power and accountability together, what some people call ownership.”

Among the delegates was L.A. Unified School District Supt. Ruben Zacarias, who lavishly praised Riordan’s efforts on behalf of schoolchildren but later dismissed the Chicago and Boston models as largely irrelevant to Los Angeles. The mayor reciprocated the superintendent’s amiable sentiments, praising him several times and describing Zacarias as “an old friend.”

Concluding his remarks, Riordan, a moderate Republican whose views on most issues are decidedly centrist, amplified his call for radical changes in children’s education.

“We need a revolution,” he said. “We owe it to kids.”

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Riordan’s emphasis on education is an increasingly dominant theme in his second and final term as the city’s mayor. It is one that carries double-barreled benefits for the incumbent, who has not shown any inclination to seek higher office.

Even before being elected in 1993, Riordan was deeply engaged with issues relating to children, so his efforts on their behalf come from his heart. The sometimes dispassionate mayor warms visibly around children, and spends much of his time and personal philanthropy on trying to improve schools.

At the same time, his new educational push presents little political risk to a mayor who sometimes has chosen to avoid controversy rather than meet it head-on. In part, Riordan has sidestepped potential difficulties by his unwillingness to push for powers like those of the Boston and Chicago mayors. As a result, he can talk about the need for strong educational leadership, but not be called upon to exercise that authority personally.

Moreover, there is little chance that Riordan would succeed, even if he did try to wrest control over schools, because the state Constitution delegates that power to elected school board members, not mayors.

At least for the moment, Riordan is left with other tools, which he is wielding guardedly but with increasing enthusiasm. Earlier this year, the mayor helped win passage of Proposition BB, a $2.4-billion bond measure for local schools. He is working behind the scenes on a number of education projects that allow him to assist school district efforts with modest city resources. And he is gingerly wading into difficult issues-- such as bilingual education--where he has raised concerns about the system without going so far as to endorse a proposed state initiative that would all but eliminate that method of instruction.

That kind of involvement, supportive partnerships with school districts and gentle political activism, was welcomed by mayors and superintendents alike at Wednesday’s conference. But it represents the least controversial approach to mayoral authority. Chicago and Boston represent the other extreme. At the conference, leaders of those two cities pronounced their efforts a success so far.

Richard M. Daley, Chicago’s pugnacious mayor and heir to his father’s name and job, said the Illinois Legislature’s decision to turn the city’s schools over to him gave him the power he needed to enact rapid, overdue change.

“Someone has to have responsibility,” he said. “Someone has to make decisions. . . . Very frankly, I wanted the responsibility.”

According to Daley’s chief executive officer for education, that city’s equivalent of a school superintendent, since the 1995 city takeover, Chicago’s schools have raised test scores, decreased dropout rates, invested in job training and halted the practice of “social promotion,” in which students are advanced from grade to grade without mastering the skills that should be required at each level.

Daley and his education CEO agreed that much of the credit for those gains is the result of clear lines of authority and stern accountability. Among other things, 150 Chicago schools have been placed on probation for poor academic performance; once on probation, highly regarded principals and teachers from elsewhere in the district are brought in to help a school rebound, Daley said.

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Those messages--tough discipline merged with easily scrutinized accountability--are central themes of Riordan’s oft-repeated management ideas. And Wednesday, the common bond between Riordan and Daley was evident not only in their comments, but also in their mutually warm reception. The two men chatted privately, jointly hosted an impromptu news conference and laughed over a joke or two.

Still, Riordan refused to be drawn into a discussion of whether the Chicago approach would work in Los Angeles. He laughed off questions on that topic, instead tossing them to Daley, who stood at Riordan’s elbow.

The Chicago mayor was not as shy. Big governments and big school districts need focused leadership, Daley said. “Someone has to be held accountable.”

Others were skeptical about whether Chicago’s methods would or could ever fly in Los Angeles.

Zacarias noted that the state Constitution calls for elected school boards, depriving mayors of the power to appoint their own people to schools. Any attempt to shift the balance of power decisively in the direction of any mayor would undoubtedly meet with stiff opposition in Sacramento.

What’s more, L.A. Unified does not just cover the city of Los Angeles, but actually reaches across dozens of municipalities, meaning that many mayors could lay claim to some aspect of the nation’s second-largest educational system.

Rather than discuss issues of municipal oversight of schools, Zacarias focused on what he said is the healthy relationship between himself and Riordan. According to both men, the mayor and superintendent are cooperating on a variety of projects, from finding sites for new primary centers to exploring ways to use computers more effectively to stumping for ballot measures that are delivering billions of dollars to local education.

“I think we have closer ties to the city” than at any point in decades, Zacarias said.

Another longtime veteran educator, Boston schools Supt. Thomas Payzant, also sounded a note of caution about trying to replicate the experiments of his city and Chicago in a municipality such as Los Angeles.

“I think it’s very context-specific,” said Payzant, adding that he believes that continuity of school funding and oversight may be more important than the specific governmental structure when it comes to delivering for children.

Boston Mayor Tom Menino added another downside. With additional authority and responsibility also come additional headaches, he said wryly.

“Some days it’s the best thing I’ve done,” he said. “Other days, it’s the worst.”

Times staff writer Amy Pyle contributed to this story.