Leaders seek local education reform strategies.

While Valley community colleges have been developing new training programs to provide a strong local work force, city leaders are at work imagining ways to reform the city's root education problems on display at the Los Angeles Unified School District, and the mayor promised to fight for reform.

Last Tuesday, the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley convened a panel of experts to discuss ways to salvage the city's education system.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who opened the conference with a welcoming speech, said that California has let Los Angeles' and other students down in letting its spending-per-student drop from third in the country to its current 35th spot.

Villaraigosa has convened a group of education experts to help develop a plan of action that he said he'll release in the coming weeks. His announced priorities have included spending money to increase the number of Before and After School Programs running in the city and encouraging more joint-use projects between the City of Los Angeles and the LAUSD, which would see more schools being used after hours as community centers for parents and children.

The mayor said he's ready for the opposition he expects to materialize around his proposals from the school board, principals and teachers and the LAUSD bureaucracy.

"When I say to you, 'I'm going to challenge this school district,' I'm going to do that," said Villaraigosa. "The only way we can win is to build a consensus of reform, starting with the business community, starting with the parents, starting with the right teachers and starting with progressive administrators who understand we cannot accept the status quo."

Since elected, Villaraigosa has shied away somewhat from the idea of attempting to seize control of the entire school district, as some cities have allowed in recent years. He did, however, say that it will be impossible to reform the city's education system without considering ideas like mayoral control of the school board, charter schools and the breakup of the district.

Los Angeles Valley College President Tyree Wieder, who has served on the mayor's council of education advisors, said that it's vital for students to be given every opportunity to make it through high school or they'll never get the chance to benefit from community college training programs.

"It's important for the entire city, that's our future work force, primarily part of the future work force that will become part of the general system, and part of our tax base," Wieder said. "We have to have a trained work force to keep the engine running. This country started out as a great economic engine and the only way to keep that engine is with a competent work force."

The meeting also featured a group of speakers addressing the state of charter schools in Los Angeles, which currently holds over 110 of the states 500 charter schools. These schools, which are publicly funded but operate under their own charters, have received praise from some for cutting the bureaucratic mess that is inherent throughout the LAUSD while still educating students to the same state standards.

Caprice Young, a former president of the LAUSD Board of Education and CEO of the newly formed Charter Schools Association, outlined the success that some schools have enjoyed and said that the charter school movement is not slowing down and has to be a factor in the city's education plans.

"The issue of Los Angeles Unified School District and charter schools and K-12 education is probably one of the most complex issues we're facing," said Wieder. "There are pros and cons to charters, there are pros and cons obviously to LAUSD. I think there's still way too much finger pointing.

"This morning, several times 'the system' was mentioned," Wieder added. "There are some state laws that I think hamper LAUSD that are very constricting, and people need to get those laws changed. As everyone talks about the system limiting what they can and cannot do, we need to talk about who that is."