The Things That Matter

Not a grain mill on acid, but a $230 million LAUSD high school | Eric Richardson

For a long time, one of California school districts' main complaints was the financial inability to build new schools.

Starting in the early 80s, the result of Prop. 13 and the subsequent Reagan and post-Reagan political climates, school funding tanked, making LAUSD, among many other districts, unable to build schools. That meant classroom overcrowding, overworked teachers, year-round scheduling, and busing disputes, among many other distractions from the business of education.

But now, after a political shift that has seen conservatives embrace the notion of public schooling, and a spate of state and local bonds to fund public schools, the LAUSD is building schools again.

That seems like it should be a good thing. Until you look more closely at how the district has been handling its role as school-builder.

LAUSD has built a bunch of new schools in the past few years – driving west-to-east on any major street will show you that. And the district says that, even with enrollment declining, schools are still way overstuffed and yet more are needed. Let's grant them that.

What's worrisome to me is not their claim of a need for schools, which may indeed be real, nor the inherent compromise of spending on new buildings instead of (say) new teachers.

No, the thing that bothers me is the way they're going about rebuilding the district. Why is LAUSD eminent-domaining low-rent neighborhoods? Why is the district dropping $100 million more than necessary on an (admittedly cool-looking) high school? Couldn't they build new schools without making these sorts of moves, which do little more than damage public trust?

Maybe I wouldn't be as concerned about that if the district was doing a great job under its other charges – like educating students. But there's no question that the district is doing its typically poor job of that, too. Even looking past standardized test scores, a new study shows that many L.A. students don't even know about state-required college prep classes.

And let us not forget last year's payroll disaster that dramatically underpaid some teachers and overpaid others.

Reacting to the questionable management of both the educational and infrastructural sides of the district, Mayor Villaraigosa has quietly wrested control of LAUSD's operations away from the school board's elected superintendent, David Brewer, and handed it to some dude in his office, named Ramon Cortines.

It's too early, of course, to know what difference that's going to make, but I hope Cortines has the mettle to get LAUSD's runaway mine cart back on the rails. As part of that, maybe he can make the LAUSD's construction initiatives justifiable again.