MAYORS MUST TAKE CONTROL OF SCHOOLS.

Byline: MARIA CASILLAS and YVONNE CHAN Local View

OVER the past year, a group of 30 volunteers has explored reforms to the Los Angeles Unified School District. Brought together by City Councilman Alex Padilla and former school board President Jose Huizar, the Presidents' Joint Commission on LAUSD Governance heard from national and local education experts and more than 1,000 parents, students, educators and other stakeholders.

Our report, issued in July, includes 54 specific recommendations guided by one overriding principle: To achieve lasting reform, we must change the structure of LAUSD.

Both of us have worked for the district, as teachers and administrators. We have seen firsthand that LAUSD is filled with passionate principals, teachers and administrators who care about children. But they are trapped in a rigid system that dictates each detail of school life.

That's why the commission's report recommends that the district be reorganized into clusters (a high school along with all the schools that feed into it). For instance, San Fernando High School, Maclay Middle School, San Fernando Middle School and 14 elementary schools could form a cluster serving 23,000 students in the Northeast Valley. It would be near and accountable to parents.

We should give school leaders in these clusters more authority over budgets, personnel and curriculum. In exchange, principals and teachers would receive support from the district and be held accountable for results. The school board should be streamlined to narrowly focus on setting education policy and ensure parents are engaged, informed and accountable partners in the education of their children.

Municipal officials should take a greater role in coordinating efforts to improve school safety and siting new schools. By giving local communities more control over their schools, we can increase civic engagement in our public schools and strengthen the social capital necessary for their success.

Structural change is important, but without increased accountability, it is insufficient. That's why several commission members, including us, believe that lasting reform must include increased authority for the 28 cities that make up the LAUSD.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other officials are in a unique position to oversee the implementation. The history of LAUSD is littered with reform plans that were introduced with fanfare, only to slowly be crushed by a bureaucracy that's hostile to change. That's why any new reform effort will not last unless there is a change in the governance structure that holds officials accountable.

Transforming an organization as large as LAUSD will require sustained attention from those outside Beaudry Street. That's exactly what Villaraigosa's proposed Council of Mayors would provide. Under the plan now before the Legislature, the Council of Mayors would participate in the selection and retention of the superintendent, ensuring that he or she is committed to change and greater local control. And by advising the school board on the budget, the council would put pressure on the district to reduce the downtown bureaucracy and put more money in the classroom.

The reality is that unless Villaraigosa and other LAUSD city mayors are given the full complement of tools to complete the job, our recommendations are likely to end up collecting dust on a shelf.