Business Group Backs Breaking Up LAUSD

The Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., the San Fernando Valley’s most prominent business group, Monday officially endorsed dismantling the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The VICA board of directors voted to support a proposal that would break up the nation’s second largest school district and divide the Valley into two independent school districts, northern and southern.

Bob Scott, author of the VICA school district position paper and co-chair of the group’s Local Issues Committee, said the LAUSD has failed to adequately prepare its students for the business world and a reorganization is necessary. The result would be more manageable and more accountable, Scott said.

“After studying the issue for several months, we felt the fundamental structure should be revised to attack the problem in smaller pieces,” Scott said. “The success of charter schools proves it--smaller is better.”

The behemoth LAUSD has about 670,000 students, which some academic experts say is more than 10 times the recommended size for a school district. The breakup initiative, called Finally Restoring Excellence in Education or FREE, would put 100,000 students in a northern Valley district and 90,000 in the southern.

VICA acted after hosting an education forum last month at which employers complained that job applicants lack basic reading and math skills.

In its position paper, VICA stated that the group endorsed the FREE plan on the grounds that the optimum public education district is smaller than 100,000 students.

Supporters of the plan say two small Valley districts would mean greater local control, increased access to administrators and improved academic standards and educational opportunities.

In the VICA position paper, the group cited a 1993 Arthur Anderson audit that gave the LAUSD poor marks for management, organization and employee discipline. The audit contended the district employs such confusing bookkeeping practices that it is unable to accurately count the number of employees on its payroll.

“It seems no one in the district wants to solve the problems,” Scott said.

Critics of the breakup plan, which include the United Teachers-Los Angeles union, say that dismantling the district would cost more and succeed only in creating more bloated bureaucracies at greater expense. They argue that students would be better served by improving teaching and adopting tougher academic standards. They also argue that smaller classes, not smaller districts, are the key to better schools.