MAYOR SHOULD GET NOD TO OK CHARTER SCHOOLS.

Byline: BILL SIART Local View

Amid the recent calls for bold reform and significant change at the Los Angeles Unified School District, there is one point on which policymakers should quickly agree: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ought to have the ability to approve charter schools, providing parents and students with expanded educational opportunities within the public school system.

Currently, the only mayor in the United States who can approve charter schools is Bart Peterson in Indianapolis. Peterson's sponsorship of charters offers some promise - and teaches some lessons - to Villaraigosa.

Chief among the benefits to students and parents is that the process of getting a charter is faster. A board of volunteers with backgrounds in education, business and academia scrutinizes the charter applications and advises the mayor. The review takes about three months - about one-third the average time it takes the LAUSD, and is still extremely thorough. All the charter board's meetings are televised.

Once a school opens its doors, Peterson's office checks in far more regularly than Indiana law requires. His schools receive visits from reviewers twice in their first year alone. Self-evaluations, surveys of staff and parents, quarterly financial reports and fiscal audits also help keep the schools on task. If a charter school is failing, Peterson can't point fingers. He's the one who let the school open.

Some schools have failed, but to his credit, Peterson isn't whitewashing his pet projects. His charter schools have been mostly successful, some extraordinarily so.

Among the schools are some interesting programs tailored to students with special needs. Two high schools focus on students at risk of dropping out. A hospital is developing another charter to serve adolescents recovering from alcohol or drug addiction. A school in the planning stages will have a curriculum infused with the arts.

Putting L.A. charter schools under Villaraigosa's auspices would offer opportunities to marshal the city's resources to support higher student achievement, healthier families and more vibrant neighborhoods. Picture grassy fields for recess during the school day and for-adult softball leagues on nights and weekends. Imagine affordable housing where low-income parents can walk their children to a charter school next door and then head to an attached community center for job-placement assistance.

In Indianapolis, Peterson has been thinking this way. To help charter schools overcome one of their highest hurdles - how to find and pay for facilities - the nation's first city-developed financing program is making $20 million in low-interest loans available to qualified schools sponsored by the mayor.

Granted, such synergy can be accomplished in Los Angeles without giving the mayor the power to grant charters. In the San Fernando Valley, a new complex of affordable apartments, an LAUSD-chartered elementary school and a community center recently opened thanks to the persistence of the nonprofit New Economics for Women. ExED, the nonprofit organization I founded to help charter schools, assembled a $36 million fund to help charter schools build campuses in L.A. County's underserved areas.

These initiatives took years to accomplish, longer than they should have. Our organizations could have reached our goals much faster with the mayor's involvement.

In Los Angeles, there will be much spirited debate on the mayor's broader proposals regarding LAUSD governance. Whatever one's position on mayoral control of the district, granting the mayor the ability to sponsor charter schools is an idea whose time has come.

The LAUSD and the Legislature should provide that authority, which would help improve all public schools in Los Angeles. We shouldn't bind the education of children with adults' red tape.