Give Schools a Steady Hand

The mothers who march their children to school on hot July mornings may not care much about Tuesday’s surprise election of lawyer Caprice Young to head the Los Angeles school board. They surely worry more about the teacher at the front of the classroom, and how fast the district can build new schools to free their kids from a hated year-round schedule.

Young’s political coup deepens divisions on the board, but its seven members must not regress into mutual sniping. There isn’t much time left before parents get too fed up to tolerate the Los Angeles Unified School District.

What are the chief jobs at hand? First is attracting more and better teachers. Just as urgent is putting up 85 schools in the next five years--before the district, 723,000 students and adding, literally runs out of room.

Board newcomers Marlene Canter and Jose Huizar by all rights should be solid reform allies with Young, Genethia Hudley Hayes and Mike Lansing, three of the four candidates elected two years ago with the help of then-Mayor Richard Riordan. The fourth, knowledgeable board veteran David Tokofsky, remains a lone ranger who is most consistent when voting for more money for teachers.

The reformist coalition, however, is strained by Young’s sudden challenge of Hayes, who made a solid start on a reform agenda in the moribund district. Young says she ran against Hayes, her old friend and political ally, to push more accountability throughout a school district where few employees are held responsible for failures.

Any significant increase in accountability will require standing up to unions and eliminating jobs held for life. That will take an unassailable board majority able to set aside personal friction.

The new school board president acknowledges, “There is a lot of healing that needs to happen.” Young should start by reconciling with Hayes and making peace with Julie Korenstein, whose opponent Young supported.

Young now must build on Hayes’ legacy. During Hayes’ two years as president, the board paid greater attention to instruction and ousted former Supt. Ruben Zacarias, hired the highly successful interim Supt. Ramon C. Cortines and halted construction on the troubled Belmont Learning Complex, along with making other difficult but necessary decisions.

An administrative reorganization into 11 “mini-districts,” approved at the request of Cortines shortly before the board hired the current superintendent, Roy Romer, has yet to prove itself. The ultimate fate of Belmont remains undecided.

Whatever progress the board has made, much more remains undone. The Los Angeles County Grand Jury report released last Monday, though flawed by inaccuracies and shabby writing, rightly keeps the focus on how much must be accomplished--speedily--for the district to avoid a breakup. Caprice Young, as school board president, must believe she can overcome the bureaucratic inertia, political infighting and turf wars that have defeated so many other boards of education. We wish her success.