Mayor Urged to Take a Stand on L.A. Unified Takeover Bill

State Sen. Gloria Romero implored Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in a letter Tuesday to state clearly whether he supports her bill to allow him to take over the public school system.

“Mr. Mayor, I respectfully request an answer,” Romero (D-Los Angeles) wrote. “Where do you stand on the bill? Time is of the essence.”

During the mayoral campaign, Villaraigosa said the mayor should have “ultimate control and oversight” over the Los Angeles Unified School District.

But Villaraigosa has since argued that he needs time to build broad support for the idea.

When asked about the letter Tuesday, Villaraigosa spokesman Joe Ramallo would not say whether the mayor supported Romero’s bill, but said Romero introduced it prematurely.

Ramallo issued a statement from the mayor’s office that reiterated Villaraigosa’s stance.

“For any school reform to take root, experience has shown that consensus needs to be developed at the local level,” the statement said. “That trust will take time to develop.”

After his election, Villaraigosa testified before Romero’s Senate Select Committee on Urban School Governance in mid-June, saying the mayor of Los Angeles should “be able to appoint all school board members, and be held accountable for improvement in achievement and the quality of instruction in the schools.”

Two weeks after Villaraigosa’s inauguration on July 1, Romero introduced SB 767, which would give the mayor the power to appoint a majority of school board members.

But Villaraigosa reacted coolly to the legislation, and the fate of Romero’s bill is now uncertain.

Because it was introduced after the deadline for new legislation, the bill must receive a waiver from the Senate Rules Committee.

The Senate would then have to approve the waiver before the bill can be taken up in the Education Committee.

Rules committee staffers Tuesday said the waiver has not been scheduled for a vote. Romero spokeswoman Nicole Winger said she could not comment on the bill’s chances.

In the meantime, Villaraigosa has appointed a 30-member advisory council to look for other ways to improve a district struggling with racial violence, low test scores and high dropout rates.

The mayor’s short-term strategy prompted some tart language from Romero.

“We cannot wait for another blue-ribbon commission to confirm what we already know: LAUSD is in an educational meltdown,” she wrote. “The time to act is now.

“We have an opportunity to begin to transform the culture of the LAUSD for the sake of our children,” she continued, “and for the sake of the future of California.”

United Teachers Los Angeles, the local teachers union, is the staunchest opponent of the takeover. It and the state teachers union spent more than $920,000 to back the mayor’s election effort. Earlier this month, president A.J. Duffy said the union would never be comfortable with a mayoral takeover.

Duffy wrote to Romero on Aug. 9 to oppose the bill.

“While we are concerned about the problems that face Los Angeles schools, this bill does not deal with educational solutions but with governance,” he said.

Duffy also argued that other big cities that have tried the strategy -- New York, Boston, Chicago and Cleveland -- “have not solved these complex problems. They have only shifted to a mayor-appointed board.”