EDITORIAL : ZACARIAS FAILED TO LEAD; THE BOARD DID THE ONLY THING IT COULD.

RUBEN Zacarias always said he had a vision for the nation's second-largest school district. Trouble was, he never had a plan, so his vision was just the musings of a tired, 70-year-old man.

Now that Zacarias is on his way out, the reform-minded board must consider what qualities it wants in a new leader to guide the district out of what seems like 40 years in the wilderness.

Considering Zacarias' dismal evaluation as a manager, the board certainly has a lot of talking points with potential candidates.

For starters, they will want to look for someone who not only can formulate but also can implement a backup plan for a sorely needed downtown high school if Belmont is abandoned.

They will want someone who wouldn't allow the district to purchase toxic property for a school in South Gate under his watch.

They will want a person who can develop a master plan to capture state funds to build schools while simultaneously pursuing a short-term plan to reduce severe overcrowding until 100 schools are built.

They will want someone who cares more about the safety and welfare of 710,000 students than the current superintendent, who never moved quickly or displayed a sense of urgency to address schools impacted with potentially explosive methane gas.

And that's just the challenges of the district's facilities that need to be addressed.

On the educational front, the district will certainly want someone who can help raise student test scores beyond a merely average increase.

And although Zacarias paid lip service to guaranteeing every child could read, he failed to implement his reading program for one year and then only introduced it with board pressure. The board will want a leader who follows through to ensure every LAUSD student can read by the third grade.

Zacarias never made sure the district's math program met state standards.

In fact, he never ensured programs adhered to the state's new academic-content standards that raise the bar for students to perform at world-class levels.

Can one person do it all? Certainly not.

In a district that's in chaos, that's as profoundly dysfunctional as the LAUSD, it will take a crack team of turn-around experts and decisive managers to make all the necessary changes.

To its credit, the new, reform-minded board, led by President Genethia Hayes, has begun cutting out the cancerous culture of denial, deflection and defending discredited decisions. It has hired Howard Miller to help institute order and discipline.

And it is expected to name an interim superintendent, one who can, in concert with Miller, retool and restart the inept bureaucracy.

But ultimately, the changes that they can make will only go so far if the district fails to hire someone who will hold the staff accountable.

And in the end, that was Zacarias' biggest fault.

Instead of taking to task his underlings after the Mullinax report was released, he dawdled, delayed, hid and deflected. In short, he did the only things he and all his cronies knew how to do after 30 years of working together in the same abscessed, decayed culture. They protected each other.

It was all about them.

It was never about the children.

Removing him has nothing to do with race - even though his appointment was racially motivated.

He was named because he was Latino, an insider appointed by an inept school board.

The unprincipled politicians who have suggested he was ousted because of his race not only do a disservice to the entire Latino community, but they also perpetuate the myths that Latinos don't care about education as much as building a power base and securing contracts for their pals.

The politicians aren't getting the message that the majority of parents of all races and classes want their children to get a good education. They don't care who gets that done, as long as grades improve, children learn, toilets are fixed and the toxic problems solved.

And anyone who plays the race card is playing a fool's hand.