Schools Chief List Finished; Suit Is Filed Over Control

The finalists for the job of Los Angeles schools chief include a retired Navy vice admiral and a former district insider who became a superintendent elsewhere, rounding out an eclectic mix of five candidates.

Separately, a coalition led by school district officials filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging legislation giving Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa substantial authority over the Los Angeles Unified School District.

One of the newly disclosed finalists for the superintendent post is David L. Brewer III, who retired from the Navy this year. The other is Maria Ott, a former senior Los Angeles schools administrator who runs the Rowland Unified School District. Sources close to the selection process confirmed both names.

The emergence of Brewer and Ott and the announcement of the lawsuit came as the Board of Education met behind closed doors to discuss who will replace outgoing Supt. Roy Romer. The board has tried to keep the selection secret, even as the mayor has demanded, unsuccessfully, a voice in who will lead the district.

As of Tuesday morning, the school board had interviewed four of five finalists selected by a search committee. The school board can pick from these five as well as from candidates who did not make the cut or turn to others outside the official applicant pool.

Last week, The Times learned that the other three finalists are Tom Vander Ark, executive director for education initiatives at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Carlos A. Garcia, the former head of the Clark County, Nev., school district; and former Occidental College President Ted Mitchell, who heads a nonprofit firm that funds charter schools. Mitchell said he has withdrawn from consideration.

One or more board members also reportedly expressed interest in state Education Secretary Alan Bersin, former superintendent of San Diego Unified, although his name was not forwarded by the selection panel.

A veteran of the Los Angeles Unified School District, Ott worked for five years as a deputy superintendent. She worked closely with Romer as a liaison to the board and the district’s local administrative hubs. She left in July to head Rowland Unified, a district of 18,000 students from several cities in eastern L.A. County.

Ott did not return several calls and e-mail requests for comment.

Brewer, who also could not be reached for comment, retired in March after a 36-year naval career, in which he received several commendations. While in the Navy, he served briefly as vice chief of naval education and training, which offers academic and naval training to sailors. His last post was as commander of the Military Sealift Command in Washington, D.C., overseeing efforts to supply U.S. forces worldwide with provisions, equipment and ammunition.

If the legislation survives the suit, the next superintendent would assume greater powers than were given to Romer. The new chief would operate more like a chief executive with authority to hire senior staff and award large contracts. He or she also would be more difficult to fire.

The lawsuit, though expected, further complicates the matter of who will lead the nation’s second-largest school system when the new law is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1.

“We think this legislation is illegal,” Kevin Reed, general counsel for L.A. Unified, said in an interview. “We believe this is necessary to answer important questions raised by state’s legislative counsel, the city’s legislative analyst and others.”

Villaraigosa is on a trade mission in Asia, but he and his legal advisors have consistently predicted that the law would pass legal muster. The mayor’s office was quick to respond, with his spokesman, Matt Szabo, calling the lawsuit “frivolous” and jabbing at the school board for “buying high-priced lawyers to obstruct the education reforms.”

The mayor responded in more subdued tones later in the day.

“I am disappointed, but this will not in any way deter us from our mission to turn around our schools,” Villaraigosa said. “We’re moving ahead with our education reform efforts.... We believe the Legislature’s mandate is constitutional and that the courts will ultimately affirm that.”

Essentially, the suit argues that the California Constitution specifically forbids placing schools or school districts under the control of city officials. The legislation grants Villaraigosa direct control over three high schools -- as yet undetermined -- and the middle and elementary schools that feed them.

The California Constitution contains “a very important but unique provision ... that we don’t believe exists in New York or Boston or Chicago, where mayoral control has been tried,” Reed said during a news conference at the headquarters of Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, which represents district principals and other mid-level administrators. The organization is part of the coalition joining the suit.

Other parties include the League of Women Voters, Rep. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles), the California School Boards Assn., the Assn. of California School Administrators, the school district’s two PTA groups and several parents.

District officials sought to assemble a broad coalition to blunt assertions by critics who accuse board members of being sore losers in the battle with Villaraigosa over control of the district.

The widely respected League of Women Voters was a particularly valued ally. It hasn’t taken a position on mayoral control, but it opposes the plan laid out in Assembly Bill 1381.

In addition to the basic constitutional question, over separation of schools and cities, the lawsuit contends that state lawmakers imposed illegally on the Los Angeles City Charter.

“Nowhere in the City Charter did it say” that the mayor should be running schools, said Reed.

The suit also alleges the law violates the California Voting Rights Acts by weakening the powers of the elected seven-member school board.

A clearly upset group of Villaraigosa allies quickly arranged an early afternoon news conference, anchored by state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), co-sponsor of the legislation.

They lashed out at the decision to file the lawsuit while the mayor is in China, implying that the timing is an insult.

Reed insisted that the group’s only goal was to file as quickly as possible.

Reed added that he hoped that a trial court could decide the case by Jan. 1. But co-counsel Fredric Woocher estimated that, including appeals to higher courts, the case could last up to a year.

Despite the legal challenge, the mayor’s office is hiring staff to prepare for its reform initiative, said Marcus Castain, a top education aide to Villaraigosa. Castain made his comments Monday to a group of business leaders assembled at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.

Castain said that the mayor hopes to select the first two clusters of schools by mid-November and that interviews are underway for an administrator to direct that effort.

This was news to the district’s Reed, who said that the school district ought to have input into the selection of the person who would be in charge of so many schools.

joel.rubin@latimes.com

howard.blume@latimes.com

Duke Helfand contributed to this story from China.