Thread: Los Angeles Schools Slide as Mayor Backs Off Takeover Strate

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Los Angeles Schools Slide as Mayor Backs Off Takeover Strategy
Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, whose pledge to improve education helped elect him in May, is tempering threats to take over the city's schools.

Villaraigosa, a city native who dropped out of high school and later graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles, has been forced to change tactics after a bill to let him assume control was found unlawful and teachers opposed the plan. A takeover was only one option among several he mentioned at a press conference this week.

The shift in strategy may come back to haunt Villaraigosa, who said in his inaugural speech that improving the schools was ``the central challenge'' for his administration. As recently as Nov. 9, he told reporters after a speech before Town Hall Los Angeles that he was ``accelerating'' plans for taking control of the city's schools.

``At best, it was disingenuous,'' said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior scholar at the University of Southern California's school of policy planning and development in Los Angeles. ``You can be sure if he goes for higher office, his opponents for that office will make something of it.''

The Los Angeles Unified School District, where Villaraigosa says one in three students fails to graduate, faces financial shortfalls that have crimped California school budgets since Proposition 13 was passed in 1978. The 741,367-student district, parts of which lie outside the city's boundaries, also is contending with an influx of students who speak English as a second language and a shortage of qualified teachers.

Agenda

Villaraigosa would have difficulties addressing those issues even if he won control, said Kathy Steinberg, vice president of education for the Parent Teacher Association for Los Angeles.

``The whole mentality right now is a quick fix,'' she said.

Voters in Los Angeles, the second-largest U.S. city, this month approved a bond issue to provide $4 billion to build and repair hundreds of campuses, signaling sympathy with Villaraigosa's goals.

During the campaign, the mayor said he should have ``ultimate control and oversight'' over the district, the Los Angeles Times reported. On Nov. 17, he told the school board he's ``making a case for accountability and mayoral control,'' the newspaper reported.

Villaraigosa, 52, in July formed a council to propose fixes for the schools. Those initiatives include improving school safety, ensuring children have access to affordable health insurance, expanding before- and after-school programs, and fostering cooperation between educators and parents.

`Not in Support'

Los Angeles should concentrate on addressing specific needs such as reducing class sizes and opening more schools, said A.J. Duffy, president of the United Teachers Los Angeles union.

``I am not in support of Mayor Villaraigosa's proposal to take control of the board,'' Duffy said. ``If you have elected a board of seven people, and if they are not doing their job, you can get rid of them.''

At a Society of Professional Journalists dinner in Los Angeles on Nov. 14, Villaraigosa said polls indicate voters also don't support mayoral control. Citing failed past efforts by Los Angeles mayors to take over the schools, Villaraigosa said he's now focused on building consensus on how to fix the schools.

Dropouts

Marlene Canter, president of the Los Angeles Unified School District's board, said she's willing to work with Villaraigosa.

Estimates of Los Angeles's dropout rate vary. A study by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University found 55 percent of high-school students didn't graduate in 2002.

The California Department of Education estimates that 19 percent of Los Angeles County high-school students dropped out in 2004, compared with a statewide rate of 13 percent.

Los Angeles public schools have experienced an influx of immigrant children whose first language isn't English, and fewer than 30 percent of students tested proficient in the language last year.

``It is extremely hard to learn your times tables if the language of instruction hasn't been mastered,'' said Steve Franklin, 32, a history teacher at Sun Valley Middle School, where 94 percent of students are Latino. Franklin, who currently teaches eighth grade, in 2004 was a teacher of the year for both the district and for the county.

Teachers

The lack of qualified teachers further aggravates problems at Los Angeles public schools, according to Franklin.

``Do you know the number of questions I was asked during my hiring interview? One,'' Franklin said. ``The question was when can I start.''

Villaraigosa's path to taking over the schools was blocked a month after he took office, when the state legislative counsel's office found unlawful a California Senate bill that would give him power to appoint a majority of members on the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

That has forced the mayor to change his approach, Bebitch Jeffe said.

``What he frankly has to do,'' she said, ``is begin to educate Angelenos that, as much as he would have liked for this to happen yesterday, it can't.''

Villaraigosa, 52, in July formed a council to propose fixes for the schools. Those initiatives include improving school safety, ensuring children have access to affordable health insurance, expanding before- and after-school programs, and fostering cooperation between educators and parents.

I don't have any direct knowledge of what schools are doing these days so I might be out of line, but what does the school have to do with

"ensuring children have access to affordable health insurance"

Los Angeles public schools have experienced an influx of immigrant children whose first language isn't English, and fewer than 30 percent of students tested proficient in the language last year.

``It is extremely hard to learn your times tables if the language of instruction hasn't been mastered,'' said Steve Franklin, 32, a history teacher at Sun Valley Middle School, where 94 percent of students are Latino.

Yes, absolutely they need to be in a school where the instruction is entirely in Espanol... like in Mexico or points south.