EDITORIAL : EVIL EMPIRE OUTRAGE METER 8.

LAUSD's culture of secrecy and lying operates like Darth Vader's Evil Empire: everything's darkly veiled and sinister.

It's also hard to know who controls LAUSD's byzantine bureaucracy when everyone hides behind a mask.

But one thing is certain: LAUSD bureaucrats would rather die at the stake than tell the truth.

On Wednesday, their well-established pattern of deceit and trickery was repeated in West Hills, this time at Haynes Street Elementary School, a school scheduled to reopen this fall after white flight forced its closure 15 years ago.

Parents were told that each child's name for the 75 coveted open-enrollment seats would be drawn out of the same box.

They then watched incredulously when well-respected Principal Usafi Diamond separated the names; one box for minority children, one box for white children.

Unsure of how to deal with the open enrollment situation, Diamond sought guidance from Los Angeles Unified School District administrators. Their instruction: fix the lottery so that all the children of the minority families get in while the 13 white families who never stood a chance were placed on a waiting list.

Apparently, the district has two policies on open enrollment. One public, fair and ignored. One secret, treacherous and skewed.

The published policy states: ``If the number of applicants exceeds the number of available spaces, a random, unbiased selection process shall be used.''

And then there's a secret policy that overrides the published policy, giving the principal authority to use open enrollment to ``enhance the integration status.''

So open enrollment is a sham.

The district's real goal - no doubt hashed out by the board behind closed doors in defiance of the Brown Act - is hidden.

State Sen. Deirdre Alpert, D-San Diego, author of the state's 4-year-old open-enrollment law, said that fixing the lottery violates the spirit of the measure and may be illegal.

The state Department of Education, in a legal summary, advised districts to administer the law in a ``random and unbiased'' manner, but added that ``racial and ethnic balance issues also apply.''

After 20 years, since the 1980s when busing for racial integration triggered an exodus to private schools and forced the closure of Haynes, the district still cannot deal with race and preferences in a fair and upfront manner.

Twenty years ago the community fought to save the neighborhood school system. But the LAUSD destroyed it and chased people away. Now, the district in its desperation is reviving the neighborhood school system and still chasing people away with its culture of lying and deceit.

It's time to drive a stake through the heart of this evil empire. It's time to open the doors and windows of our schools to the light of truth and honesty.

Parents, students and the community as a whole support integrated, well-balanced schools that provide a healthy educational environment and help every child to succeed. The LAUSD is not capable of achieving that.