Mayor Blasts L.A. School Board

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa assailed the Los Angeles school board Thursday, saying it stands in the way of reform and oversees a bureaucracy that is “failing” its students.

The harsh critique during a speech in the San Fernando Valley led a school board member to walk out in protest.

Julie Korenstein, a 19-year veteran of the Los Angeles Unified School District board, left her seat at a front-row table as the mayor neared the end of his address to about 400 local business leaders.

“It is very difficult to be attacked like that and not be able to respond,” Korenstein said.

Villaraigosa defended his comments and reiterated his intention to take control of the troubled district, which is run by an elected seven-member board. “I’m making the case for why we need accountability and mayoral control of our schools,” he said.

Korenstein said she was angered by the mayor’s description of the district leadership as being opposed to reform. She also took exception to his assertion -- based on a controversial study -- that roughly half of the district’s students do not graduate on time. District officials say the graduation rate is higher.

No other board members were at the United Chambers of Commerce luncheon, at a hotel in Woodland Hills.

The mayor saved his tough talk until the end of his speech.

“It was very nice and cordial at first,” said Councilman Dennis Zine, who attended. “But then he started talking about education. He didn’t hold back any punches.”

Zine sat at the same table as Korenstein. “I didn’t see smoke coming out of her ears, but she was certainly perturbed,” he said.

Korenstein described the mayor’s comments as “very negative and mean-spirited.”

Thursday’s speech marked the second time this week that Villaraigosa has taken to task the board and the district’s 40,000-person bureaucracy.

At a gathering of business leaders Tuesday, he made a similar speech.

Board members and Supt. Roy Romer have bristled at the criticism by Villaraigosa and others, such as state Sen. Gloria Romero, saying the district has made strides in academic performance despite serving 727,000 students, many of them poor and with limited English skills.

Romer and the board have made improvements in the last five years. An overhaul of the elementary-grade curriculum has led to significant gains on state test scores, and the district has opened about 50 new schools as part of an ongoing construction and repair initiative.

The district has struggled, however, to raise achievement in its aging middle and high schools, where enrollments often exceed 2,500 students.

At 27 of the district’s comprehensive high schools, for example, fewer than a quarter of the students showed proficiency on state English exams.

A spate of racially motivated melees at Jefferson High School last spring led Villaraigosa to intensify his criticism of the district.

The mayor has said he intends to take control of the school district before his first term ends in 2009.