Teachers Leaders Blast Breakup

The president of the Los Angeles teachers union Wednesday criticized the campaign to dismantle the Los Angeles Unified School District, telling a small gathering of parents that the effort will lead to political fights without improving student achievement.

Day Higuchi, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, warned an audience of 30 at El Camino Real High School that a district breakup would drain local resources. He said efforts should be made instead to improve teaching, draft rigorous academic standards and ensure safe schools.

“There’s plenty of evidence that small classes help students,” Higuchi said. “There’s absolutely no evidence that small districts do.”

Higuchi brought along a powerful ally to bolster his message.

Sandra Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told the gathering that the decentralization of New York city schools into 32 districts in the late 1960s created “mini-bureaucracies” rife with mismanagement.

While the decentralization of power helped involve more parents in public education, it did little to help children in New York, which has more than 1 million students in the nation’s largest school system.

“In the majority of districts, we had patronage when it came to filling principal positions,” Feldman said, with jobs going to people based “on whose campaign you worked on.”

“A lot of kids lost out, and we lost a lot of money that should have been spent on books for children.”

Feldman said the decentralization also led to squabbling among various groups, and that two years ago state lawmakers decided to return many powers to the chancellor of the school system--allowing him, for example, to fire principals and hire individual district superintendents.

One breakup proponent who attended Wednesday’s meeting criticized Higuchi and Feldman for attempting to skirt the critics’ argument that a sprawling school system such as the LAUSD cannot adequately serve its students or respond to concerns at local schools miles from its central headquarters.

“We’re asking for something that’s reasonable--school districts that are more manageable, accountable and accessible,” said Stephanie Carter, co-chairwoman of the breakup group Finally Restoring Excellence to Education.

“In my opinion, breaking up the district is saving public education,” Carter said.

Carter’s group, which has proposed the creation of two districts in the San Fernando Valley, is trying to collect the required 20,808 signatures from Valley residents to place the matter on the ballot in two years. The teachers union has pressed for legislation that would require all voters in Los Angeles to decide the matter.

Higuchi said his union is not opposed to local school control, just to the idea of carving up the district and creating problems for students.

“Do you really want to get into adult political battles that may come full circle 30 years hence like in New York City?” Higuchi asked.