BOARD RACE REVIVES LAUSD BREAKUP ISSUE.

Byline: Helen Gao Staff Writer

The Los Angeles school board campaign has revived from the dead an issue that has long been a hot button among San Fernando Valley voters: Breakup of the nation's second-largest school district.

School board President Caprice Young, who is seeking a second four-year term in Tuesday's elections, wants to dissolve the Los Angeles Unified School District and create numerous smaller, autonomous neighborhood districts - each with its own board and full control of its resources.

``Until the new neighborhood districts have control over money, it won't have that much difference because the power will keep being sucked to the downtown bureaucracy,'' said Young, who is running with the support of former Mayor Richard Riordan's Coalition for Kids, which has driven LAUSD reform.

Challenger Jon Lauritzen believes that the problems within the LAUSD - with more than 746,800 students spread out over 704 square miles - can be fixed without breakup. He has heavy financial backing from United Teachers Los Angeles, which has consistently opposed breakup.

To improve local control, Lauritzen has proposed a series of incremental steps, ranging from his hosting office hours in the San Fernando Valley to establishing two-way videoconferencing at local schools so parents would not have to travel downtown to air their concerns to the school board.

``Breaking up the district would be one of my last possible resorts,'' said Lauritzen, a retired Canoga Park High School teacher, who acknowledged that opposing breakup could cost him votes.

``If it's going to go under, and the district is going to go bankrupt and parents are not supporting it and breakup becomes the last resort, you've got to do something to save the kids. It would be my last resort. There are too many resources we could use to make it whole again.''

As part of his campaign, Lauritzen is proposing to create a Valley Education Congress, composed of representatives from the city's neighborhood councils, who would give him input on education.

Young noted that the school board already has passed a resolution she co-sponsored to promote collaboration between neighborhood councils and the board, and even Lauritzen acknowledges that neighborhood councils - advisory bodies to the Los Angeles City Council - wield no real power.

Young said breakup is necessary because repeated efforts to improve the system by decentralizing the behemoth bureaucracy have failed miserably.

``Thirty-two years ago, (then-Gov.) Ronald Reagan vetoed legislation that would have broken up the district. At the time, he said he wanted to give decentralization a chance,'' Young said.

``I've been there. I've tried that. I am not willing to wait anymore.''

Those who were involved in earlier school and city breakup efforts agree with Young and applaud her proposal, saying they are ready to help make breakup a reality if she is re-elected.

``Caprice, God bless her. Why it took her so long to figure it out, I don't know,'' said Gene La Pietra, who led the Hollywood secession movement that voters defeated last November. ``The level of discontent in Hollywood is at revolutionary status. People want change.

``We don't get a second chance at educating our children. We have blown it year after year.''

La Pietra said he fought for cityhood, in part, because it would create the opportunity for Hollywood to eventually have its own school district.

``You will absolutely find more support for creating a new school district than you found for cityhood,'' La Pietra said. ``I found that every single day, everywhere I went, people would say, I am not for breakup of the city, but new school districts, I will be with you on that one.''

Stephanie Carter, who led the Valley's failed effort to create its own school districts in 2001, said where there is political will, there is a way.

When Finally Restoring Excellence to Education, Carter's group, petitioned for breakup, it encountered stiff political opposition from Superintendent Roy Romer and UTLA, and the state Board of Education rejected the plan.

If an insider like Young is leading breakup, some believe the political climate might be more favorable.

``Most people, especially people who have children in the schools, understand they are being shortchanged - not just in the Valley, but elsewhere as well.''

The question for voters, Carter said, is this: ``Why keep a dysfunctional system together - one that does not meet the educational needs of the children?''

Andrew Mardesich, director of the Harbor Study Foundation, which is working to create a city of San Pedro and a separate school district for the harbor area, said Young's support gives the district breakup movement legitimacy.

``I compliment her for her vision in seeing LAUSD at her level, trying to make the system work, acknowledging the system is so huge that we need to put the students and teachers ahead of budgets and bureaucracy, and not perpetuate this huge machine.''

Lauritzen says Young's breakup proposal is just an election ploy to win votes in the Valley, but Young insists she always considered breakup as an option.

Yvonne Chan, executive director of Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima, and Ferris Wehbe, another Hollywood school breakup proponent, confirmed that Young had spoken to them about district breakup long before her re-election campaign.

The enthusiasm for Young's proposal is surprising, especially considering that she did not champion the Valley school breakup movement when Valley and Hollywood secession were on the ballot last year.

Young said she opposed creating two separate Valley school districts because they would have benefited only one area of the city. And she said she did not favor school breakup during the Valley secession campaign because she felt the politics surrounding the creation of a separate city would have overshadowed education issues.

Bill Ouchi, a management professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said separating the city secession movements from school district breakup might work to Young's political advantage.

``I think it has a somewhat better chance when it's detached from the Valley secession idea,'' said Ouchi, a Young supporter. He is co-chairman of the Los Angeles Alliance for Student Achievement, which is seeking to create a large number of charter schools within the LAUSD - a program Young also supports.

Still, many obstacles stand in Young's way. Once elected, she needs to garner the support of her colleagues to establish a citizens commission to study how best to break up the district.

If the board adopts the recommendations of the commission, sufficient signatures must be gathered before the plan is presented to the county and the state Board of Education for approval. The state board has the ultimate authority on whether to put the breakup plan on the ballot.

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Photo:

(1 -- 2) Jon Lauritzen, above left, is a retired schoolteacher who is running for the LAUSD against board President Caprice Young, above right, who has proposed breaking up the nation's second-largest school district - a move Lauritzen calls a last resort.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer