Aphorist Dorothy Parker once observed, "Los Angeles is 72 suburbs in search of a city." Similarly diffuse and divided is Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's latest plan to take over L.A. Unified. His wheeling and dealing with teachers unions to save his flailing bid to become education boss threatens to undermine the entire project. Re-read that sentence and you can understand why; after all, the most compelling argument for mayoral control is to diminish the Politburo-like power that urban teacher unions exert over elected school boards. The details coming out of Sacramento are troubling. One reported compromise, for example, would allow each campus to set its own curriculum. As departing L.A. Superintendent (and former Colorado governor) Roy Romer rightly points out, "It sounds great until you learn that about one in four of our students change schools in any given year." Another part of Villaraigosa's original vision lost in his deal-making is a clear line of accountability for schools. Under the new plan, L.A.'s superintendent would report to both the Board of Education and the new "Council of Mayors." Who's in charge? Everyone, which means no one, sort of like the District of Columbia, a fine model of urban education success. In L.A., as we understand it, the latest version of the Mayor's plan would have the superintendent set the school budget, the mayor review it, and the board set overall budget categories. All the while, principals and teachers are developing 72 different curriculum sets. Angelina and Brad must be wondering: how are Namibia's schools?
"Roy Romer: The mayor's bad deal," by Roy Romer, Los Angeles Times, June 25, 2006
