`DEAL' ON LAUSD NEEDS GOOD GOING-OVER.

Byline: DOUG LASKEN Local View

ASSEMBLY Bill 1381, representing L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa's deal on the takeover of the Los Angeles Unified School District, has made it past the Senate Education Committee, part of a fast-track push to gain full approval by next year. This is fast track indeed, considering the rapid evolution of the mayor's plan in just the last few weeks. We need to take a breath and try to figure out what this bill means before it's immutable law. < The mayor now supports, in vague terms, reverting much of the state's authority over curriculum to the ``classroom.'' The teachers unions' reaction here is instructive.

The California Teachers Association and United Teachers Los Angeles were set to kill mayoral control, but they have done a 180-degree turnabout, moving from vocal opposition to vocal support. Endless e-mails tell members that ``takeover is dead'' and that we have a great deal coming in AB 1381. Why the dramatic change? The unions don't really explain it, relying as they do on membership's docility. But the clear suggestion from vague pronouncements is that local control over curriculum will be greatly enhanced.

So what's wrong with local control of curriculum?

Potentially, a lot.

California students are highly transient. Do we want a different reading theory facing students in each district? The state is well into a major reform involving explicit phonics instruction, most notably in elementary schools implementing the Open Court program, which replaced the previous use of ``whole language.''

Some history: For several years in the late 1990s, expensive whole-language programs -- which claimed that children teach themselves to read -- had prohibited instruction of phonics, grammar and spelling in many districts, including the LAUSD. The predictable result: a crash of reading scores that brought California to the level of Alabama. The state came to its senses with the standards movement, and explicit phonics was ushered in. There is controversy among teachers about the scripted nature of Open Court, but no one denies that it has produced higher elementary reading scores every year since its implementation six years ago.

Back to the mayor's promise of local control. The people who had vested interests in whole language (including education ``experts'' and publishers who made substantial money from the programs) have not gone away. They have been waiting for their comeback, and AB 1381 could pave the way.

The tacit promise of local control of curriculum, in the minds of many, is that under the mayor's plan neither the state nor the district would have the authority to mandate explicit phonics instruction. This could help explain why the unions, whose curriculum mavens loved whole language, did its switcheroo. The same goes for Jackie Goldberg, termed-out assemblywoman and former L.A. school board member who supported whole language as a board member and routinely denounces explicit phonics in the Assembly. Goldberg, who hopes to be LAUSD superintendent under the new regime, just did the same 180 as the unions.

Admittedly, the motives of Goldberg and the unions are a matter of speculation, but that's the point. The unions, Goldberg, in fact everyone currently supporting the plan -- including the mayor himself -- are saying nothing about AB 1381's impact on curriculum. We are asked to fast track this thing on the basis of slogans and pressure.

After the roller coaster our kids have been on, we deserve better than this. At the very least, we need the mayor to come forward, show some knowledge of curricular issues, and indicate where he stands.