Reform Los Angeles Unified School District

Even the liberals are disgusted with California public schools and particularly the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Former California Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg argues in yesterdays L.A. Daily News that the Mayor’s office needs to take control, Mayoral control key to repairing LAUSD.

I cannot think of a public issue more compelling for our generation than the need to repair the public school system in Los Angeles.

The evidence of failure is everywhere. The statistics damn the system on every aspect of its operation, but none provides a more telling measure of the disastrous future the LAUSD is creating than the fact that 53 percent of its ninth-grade students do not graduate from high school.

The failure of the LAUSD affects all of us equally, from the San Fernando Valley to Long Beach and South Gate. The time to act is now.

But how do we implement fundamental education reform?

In my run for mayor, I called for breaking up the LAUSD once and for all. But much of the current debate over reform has focused on giving the mayor control of the school system. If we cannot split up the school district, then mayoral control could just be the right fix because — just like the idea of dissolving the district — mayoral control goes to the fundamental problem of governance.

Flap does not agree.

Transferring control from an elected school board to an elected Mayor will do nothing except concentrate power in City Hall.

The LAUSD needs to be broken up into smaller districts immediately with locally elected schools boards which will be accountable to the voters.

Moreover, interdistrict vouchers should be provided California students so families can vote for their child’s education with their feet, if the schools provide inadequate services. Choice not bureaucracy.

No more excuses, it is time to reform California schools.

This L.A. Mayor power grab is not the answer.