An Agenda Beyond Education

The 100-plus folks who gathered last Saturday for a Valley VOTE-sponsored summit on breaking up the Los Angeles Unified School District were desperate to do something, and fast. It just wasn’t clear what, exactly, everyone wanted to do.

There was no shortage of ideas. Some wanted to break the San Fernando Valley off into two school districts, split north and south. Some wanted two districts, east and west. Some insisted on a single Valley district. One person suggested three, grouped around the Valley’s three community colleges, with students attending not kindergarten through 12th grade but K-14.

Some called for a single master plan for the entire LAUSD district. Others called for each community to develop its own plan and “overwhelm” the state Board of Education with requests. Still others insisted that a Valley plan (but which one?) combined with a plan to form a breakaway South Bay district was already a districtwide plan.

John Perez, representing the teachers’ union, offered his group’s take that dividing the district would create more bureaucracy, not less, without solving such problems as teacher shortages and crowded schools. But no one wanted to talk about that.

The group’s focus on speed and process--getting committees formed and petitions circulating rather than exploring solutions--puts the cart before the horse. But then, with Valley VOTE (Voters Organized Toward Empowerment) leading the effort, what’s behind the cart may be a Trojan horse, as much about keeping the city secessionist group’s name in the news--and donations in its dwindling coffers--as about finding a solution for Los Angeles’ beleaguered schools. A true consensus may depend upon finding a group with less of an agenda to steer the course.