Mayoral Candidates Clash Over Breakup of School District

The leading candidates for mayor of Los Angeles clashed Wednesday over how to reform the public schools, with City Atty. James K. Hahn threatening for the first time to seek a breakup of the school district if a dramatic improvement doesn’t occur soon.

Meeting in the San Fernando Valley, the birthplace of the movement to break up the city, five of the six leading contenders focused on issues of voter discontent and shoddy city services, with each claiming to be better prepared to revamp City Hall and keep Los Angeles together.

Some of the sharpest exchanges during the forum at Cal State Northridge centered on the troubled Los Angeles Unified School District. Even though the mayor has no direct power over the schools, the school breakup proposal is a hot issue in the Valley.

Businessman Steve Soboroff told the 500 people in the audience that the only solution is to break the district into several, smaller neighborhood school districts and do away with the bloated downtown bureaucracy.

Hahn threatened to join the breakup movement if the recent reorganization of the district into 11 mini-districts does not yield major improvements soon. The new structure was intended to decentralize authority.

“If that doesn’t come to pass, I’m going to join the breakup movement,” Hahn said. “I’m willing to give them a little time, but my patience is wearing thin.”

Hahn criticized Soboroff for the slow pace of school construction while Soboroff served on a school bond construction oversight committee.

A school district breakup was opposed by Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) and former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, who both said giving principals, teachers and parents more decision-making power is the answer.

Villaraigosa said he supports more after-school programs, while Becerra vowed to “get rid of the busing programs that take our kids away from their families and their neighborhoods and never allow parents to become part of the schools.”

State Controller Kathleen Connell, the fifth major candidate at the forum, did not directly address the breakup but said she is overseeing a state audit of the schools that is identifying waste.