Daily News: De facto LAUSD breakup

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http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/ci_7178278


De facto LAUSD breakup

If it works, it doesn't matter what it's called
10/14/2007 05:13:51 PM PDT

LOS Angeles Unified School District Superintendent David Brewer's plan to create a separate district for low-performing schools and to target middle schools for reform is an acknowledgment that something drastic needs to be done to improve education.

Brewer says that this is a step toward improving the LAUSD by empowering this new mini-district of the 44 worst-performing schools to be more flexible and to have the autonomy to tailor solutions to meet the students' needs. In addition he will create "personalized learning environments" at all of the district's 92 middle schools, which he said have been long neglected.

It seems the de facto breakup of the country's second-largest school district, begun with the mayor's breaking up two school clusters, is accelerating.

No one, of course, would call it such. That word carries too much political baggage.

"It's our way to try to create more smallness out of largeness," one district official said.

Whatever. But it doesn't matter what words people use to describe this important decentralizing of the power of the LAUSD. All that matters is the principles of breakup - such as empowering schools, the principals and the communities to take charge of their schools and educational needs, and not cede them to the vast and often uncaring LAUSD bureaucracy.

When it comes to schools, smaller is always better. It's what district secessionists have been saying for years.

Still, what counts is that this carving out of special districts be more than just a public-relations stunt. There's a real danger of ghettoizing the special district full of low-performing schools once they've been removed from the rest of the district.

If this breaku- er, reform effort, has a chance of succeeding, it needs more than just a separation. It needs sustained commitment to the ideals of smaller, more autonomous and innovative schools.