Zacarias Should Leave Quickly

Only Ruben Zacarias can stop the turmoil that roils the Los Angeles Unified School District. By leaving quickly, the superintendent can end the divisive “us-against-them” campaign that could put a permanent rent in the political landscape.

Those who know him know he cares about the schoolchildren of LAUSD. Surely he can see that a continuation of the power struggle between him and the elected Board of Education cannot benefit learning. The elected board majority rightly wanted major change for the crisis-prone district. He works for the board. Nothing he could do at this point would allow him to continue effectively in the job of superintendent. He can leave after a protracted and ugly fight or he can leave now. Those are his only choices.

Zacarias does not want to leave, but he is in a no-win situation, having lost the confidence of the majority of the board. Newcomers Genethia Hayes, Caprice Young and Mike Lansing and incumbent Valerie Fields voted to put real estate lawyer and former school board president Howard Miller in charge of every aspect of the district, including instruction. That bell will not be unrung.

As he fights for his job, Zacarias has been able to buy time, but he does not have the votes to continue. Facilities and management issues have loomed large, especially what should be done with the Belmont Learning Complex, the half-built new high school located on an abandoned oil field tainted with explosive chemicals. But what must be remembered is that about two-thirds of students in the LAUSD cannot read, write or do math at grade level.

Test scores remain embarrassingly low in spite of small progress made during the superintendent’s tenure since July 1997. Many students still do not have qualified teachers, current textbooks or even a desk at the neighborhood school.

Ruben Zacarias cannot be blamed for every problem that besets the nation’s second-largest school district. As we have said, he did not create the unresponsive bureaucracy of the district, but he has been unable to change it. That must happen.

Time is running out for the Los Angeles Unified School District. Zacarias cares about the students--but so do board members and others advocating radical change as the only way to save a district that fails too many in its basic education mission.

Supt. Zacarias can best serve the children by leaving quickly, knowing that it often takes more courage to walk away from a fight than it does to keep punching.