TEACHERS FUMBLE BY SUPPORTING BILL.

Byline: RALPH E. SHAFFER Local View

RAPIDLY working its way through the California Legislature is AB 1381, sponsored by Assembly speaker Fabian Nunez and Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero. If passed, the bill would go far toward giving Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa czar-like powers over the Los Angeles Unified School District.

AB 1381 gives the mayor veto power over appointment of a superintendent, transfers most of the budget-making process to his handpicked flunky and places the mayor directly in control of a multitude of elementary and middle schools that feed into three low-performing high schools of his choosing. The bill also allows the superintendent -- read mayor -- to request sweeping waivers from Education Code requirements.

Actually, Villaraigosa sought even greater power than his colleagues in the Democratic leadership were willing to push for at this time. Still, what they offered him is enough to cause even greater chaos in the district's schools.

Fantasizing that under the bill teachers would be ``empowered'' to a greater degree than currently exists, union leadership of both the local teachers' organization, United Teachers Los Angeles, and the statewide organization, the California Teachers Association, have given their blessing to the bill.

UTLA President A.J. Duffy participated in the deal along with a high- ranking CTA official. A CTA release emphasizes that the bill will ``empower educators and parents'' and ``cut bureaucracy.'' Apparently the CTA and UTLA don't realize that, in the public mind, they are part of the bureaucracy.

Misgivings soon arose among classroom teachers, however. A startled union membership recognized that their organization was once again naively trudging a primrose path laid down by a wily politician.

How long ago was it that CTA joined then private citizen Arnold Schwarzenegger in touting what turned out to be a costly after-school program that, if ever implemented, will divert hundreds of millions from the education budget? The initiative ultimately propelled Schwarzenegger to governorship as the champion of kids. He then sliced a staggering amount of money out of the education budget.

The present ``historic agreement for comprehensive reform,'' as the CTA has labeled the bill, is yet another blunder by the union's leadership.

Proposed language expanding collective bargaining, which caused the California School Board Association to oppose the bill, and which was touted by the CTA as a reason for making the deal with the mayor, does not appear in the legislation. And the later insertion of the word ``empower'' into the text was done in a way that is meaningless.

Furthermore, while the ``partnership'' that would have a minimal voice in the running of the mayor's cluster of low-performing schools does refer to employee organizations, it gives that same voice to other organizations with no connection to the schools.

Despite the dangers in AB 1381, the local union's mistaken endorsement was upheld by a narrow margin when, in response to outrage expressed by many rank-and-file teachers, the organization's assembly voted 101-89 to support the bill.

Unfortunately, with a Democratic majority in the Legislature and a politically astute governor who knows how to use public discontent to his advantage, another nail is about to be put into the coffin of public education.