EDITORIAL NOT OVER YET ONE RULING DOESN'T MAKE LAUSD REFORM PLAN HISTORY.IT was bad news, but perhaps not wholly unexpected, when a judge ruled Thursday that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's school-reform plan is unconstitutional and barred it from becoming law Jan. 1. But that ruling doesn't mean Villaraigosa's plan to take some control of Los Angeles' schools is dead. Far from it. This was just one setback in a long, but terribly important process that Villaraigosa must see through to the end -- not just for his own political legacy, but for the children of Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. . The mayor immediately responded that he will appeal the decision against AB 1381, the bill that gave him and a council of mayors some powers over the Los Angeles Unified School District The Los Angeles Unified School District (the "LAUSD") is the largest (in terms of number of students) public school system in California and the second-largest in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population. , as far as the state's Supreme Court if necessary. It was the right tack. Although Thursday's ruling concluded that the law violates the state's constitution, the city's charter and voters' rights, a higher court can render that decision null A character that is all 0 bits. Also written as "NUL," it is the first character in the ASCII and EBCDIC data codes. In hex, it displays and prints as 00; in decimal, it may appear as a single zero in a chart of codes, but displays and prints as a blank space. . The ruling was, of course, great news to the school district officials who fought the mayor's reform attempt tooth and nail. Indeed, if school officials had spent half as much time, effort and money on real education reform instead of just fighting off the mayor, they might have public opinion on their side. As it is, they have neither the good will of the public nor the support of the teachers union or the state's most powerful leaders. In the wake of the ruling, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (German pronunciation (IPA): [ˈaɐ̯nɔlt ˈaloɪ̯s ˈʃvaɐ̯ʦənˌʔɛɡɐ] and state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez both pledged their continued support of Villaraigosa's plan. It's in the best interests of school officials to make good on their promises to work with the mayor. Absent an immediate ruling in favor of AB 1381 in a higher court, there is still the upcoming school board races, where four of the seven seats will be up. If Villaraigosa puts his political capital into the race, he is likely to influence the outcome in his favor. At this point, the status quo [Latin, The existing state of things at any given date.] Status quo ante bellum means the state of things before the war. The status quo to be preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. of LAUSD LAUSD Los Angeles Unified School District (Los Angeles, CA) isn't an option. One way or the other, the battle for change and accountability in Los Angeles' schools will continue. And it must. The public will no longer tolerate a 50 percent dropout (1) On magnetic media, a bit that has lost its strength due to a surface defect or recording malfunction. If the bit is in an audio or video file, it might be detected by the error correction circuitry and either corrected or not, but if not, it is often not noticed by the human rate and schools that fail to properly educate students. No one can afford to let this fight be over yet. |
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