EDITORIAL : LOCAL CONTROL SABOTAGED HAYDEN'S LEGISLATION PROTECTS THE STATUS QUO AT THE LAUSD.

A perverse game is being played out in the state capital showing once again just how hard it is for parents and community leaders to regain control of their local, tax-supported public-school system.

The state Board of Education is scheduled to meet today in Sacramento and consider new rules that, in effect, would make it tougher for residents of Los Angeles, including those in the San Fernando Valley, to break up the huge Los Angeles Unified School District and create smaller, more accountable school districts.

The irony is that the proposed regulations were spawned by legislation, submitted by state Sen. Tom Hayden, D-Los Angeles, that was piggybacked onto former Assemblywoman Paula Boland's successful bill to remove obstacles to breaking up the LAUSD.

Boland wrote her measure to make it easier for the public to divide the 708-square-mile L.A. school district and create smaller, autonomous units with local control, more parental influence and more effective management.

Hayden said his companion measure, Senate Bill 699, was necessary for the political survival of the Boland bill. SB 699 requires that any new district carved from the LAUSD meet a whole set of criteria, including ethnic diversity.

So, now the time has come for the state Board of Education to adopt detailed regulations to flesh out the broad framework of the Hayden bill.

And wouldn't you know it: The state board is on the verge of adopting regulations that were written by the educational establishment, without benefit of even one public hearing in the L.A. area - the only part of the state affected by the rules.

The regulations look as if they were designed to protect the interests of every status-quo group but one - namely, the parents and community leaders who want new, better school districts.

The draft regulations contain protections for labor, for educational careerists and for insiders of every stripe; they just don't do anything to make it easier for the taxpaying public to set up new school districts. What's more, the proposed rules actually impose new burdens on anyone attempting to create a new district.

It's unfortunate that no public hearing was held in Los Angeles to expose these serious flaws. It's also unfortunate that Hayden's legislation has set up new obstacles for the school-district breakup movement while Hayden spends much of his time and energy running for mayor of Los Angeles.

If Hayden wants to be a leader for the whole city, he should explain why he didn't follow through with clean-up chores after his legislation passed - especially since his legislation's insistence on racial and ethnic criteria amounted to an accusation of racism against those who try to create new districts.

In reality, the Valley is one of the best examples of Los Angeles' breathtaking diversity, with speakers of many different tongues living peacefully in the common pursuit of a quintessential American middle-class dream: a home of their own, and a chance to give their children a better life.

That's not a racial agenda. In the Valley and elsewhere in Los Angeles, school reformers are simply trying to improve education - and it's a real shame that Sacramento and the political status quo are putting up roadblocks.