Plan to Split L.A. Unified to Be Offered

State Assemblyman Keith Richman (R-Northridge) said he would introduce legislation next month to divide the Los Angeles Unified School District into several smaller districts.

Richman is proposing that the 727,000-student district be reorganized into districts of no more than 50,000 students each by 2010. If approved, the plan could result in as many as 20 separate school systems.

With his call for decentralization, the moderate Republican becomes the latest lawmaker to call for a breakup of the nation’s second-largest school district. Previous legislative attempts have failed.

Richman has waded into an increasingly contentious debate over the governance of the autonomous Los Angeles Unified. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has repeatedly criticized the work of elected school board members and said he planned to take control of the district by the end of his first term. And the mayor and City Council support calls by City Controller Laura Chick to conduct a comprehensive district audit.

Richman said Wednesday that mayoral control “was a step in the right direction,” but said smaller districts were needed to improve accountability.

He said he expected to introduce the bill in early January. It would leave the details of how to break up the district in the hands of a nine-member commission of area mayors, academics and others.

Richman’s proposal would face stiff scrutiny in Sacramento. State Sen. Jack Scott (D-Altadena), chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he had questions about the legality of the proposal and its effect on enrollment.

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Times staff writer Duke Helfand contributed to this report.