This was cram week for Mayor Villaraigosa to pass AB 1381, his severely amended takeover plan for LAUSD. And our mayor worked his ass off. But in the end, it may turn out that Villaraigosa has been sitting in the wrong classroom this entire time: While he’s been busy perfecting his politicking skills and polishing his resume, the real issues of public education in Los Angeles are being ignored. Just consider all that this mayoral control movement has kicked up.
From the very beginning, one interest above all has seen its stake in the mayoral takeover: the charter school industry. To entrepreneurs like Steve Barr, founder of Green Dot schools, splitting up the public school system means more business. To L.A.’s de facto education ministers Eli Broad and Richard Riordan it means one more chance to establish a legacy of leadership. It’s no coincidence that these figures in the charter school movement have been cheering for AB 1381 before it was anything more than a glint in Villaraigosa’s eye.
Since then he’s had to compromise nearly every part of the plan in order to soothe critics and bring on board the rest of the Democratic leadership. And now that all the amendments have settled, all the scraps delivered, everyone from the County Federation of Labor to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has uneasily approved the bill despite its faults, because no one can say “no” to Villaraigosa. No one, that is, except for the Broads, Riordans and Barrs of the world. This week Riordan spoke out against any amendment that would allow the plan to continue if any one part is challenged in court, and Barr led a PR bus excursion to Sacramento to step up the mayor’s bad-mouthing of LAUSD.
Meanwhile, the charter school movement is looking more dubious than ever. A report released just this week by the Federal Education Department found that fourth graders in traditional public schools scored higher in reading and math compared to students in charters, based on 2003 scores. We’ve also seen charter school operators in Pasadena overcharge the state $57 million, while other educators are teaching unsupervised curriculum, like Academia Semillas del Pueblo teaching math in Nahuatl with Aztec abacuses.
All the while, LAUSD test scores have been creeping up, making everyone-except those that stand to gain from a splintered public school system-ask whether this is really worth it. Mayoral takeover, in this form, is a calculated abandonment of a slowly improving school district-the benefits no longer outweigh the dubious and dangerous consequences.