[speechlesstx]

Wow, good for L.A.

In a startling acknowledgment that the Los Angeles school system cannot improve enough schools on its own, the city Board of Education approved a plan Tuesday that could turn over 250 campuses -- including 50 new multimillion-dollar facilities -- to charter groups and other outside operators.

The plan, approved on a 6-1 vote, gives Supt. Ramon C. Cortines the power to recommend the best option to run some of the worst-performing schools in the city as well as the newest campuses. Board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte dissented.

The vote occurred after a tense, nearly four-hour debate during which supporters characterized the resolution as a moral imperative. Foes called it illegal, illogical and improper.

The action signals a historic turning point for the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has struggled for decades to boost student achievement. District officials and others have said their ability to achieve more than incremental progress is hindered by the powerful teachers union, whose contract makes it nearly impossible to fire ineffective tenured teachers. Union leaders blame a district bureaucracy that they say fails to include teachers in "top-down reforms."

"The premise of the resolution is first and foremost to create choice and competition," said board member Yolie Flores Aguilar, who brought the resolution, "and to really force and pressure the district to put forth a better educational plan."

She and other backers said they expected the district to improve its own performance and to also compete to turn around schools. Bidders could apply to manage schools by mid-January.

For the charter school operators, the biggest prize is 50 new schools scheduled to open over the next four years.

"It's absolutely indispensable, of critical importance to us," said Jed Wallace, chief executive of the California Charter Schools Assn. "It's a once-in-a-generation opportunity: 50 new school buildings coming online at the exact same time that a cadre of charter operators has demonstrated that it can generate unprecedented levels of student learning."

Charters are publicly funded but independently operated and free from some regulations governing the traditional administration of schools. They also are not required to be unionized.

Now why in the world would LA schools reach this decision?

[tomder55]

If the teacher's union is against it I'm for it. You know that if La LA adopts a proposal of choice and privatization in education and breaks away from statist doctrinaire then their schools most suck so obviously that even they can see it's beyond repair under the current system.

It's a risk for Villaraigosa to go for it and if this doesn't work out his political career is history. Bloomberg in NY had to seize control of the school system from it's stale bureaucratic inertia ,despite the braying of the entrenched special interests... and by all measures the system has improved as a result.

The problem here ,and in NY is that the entrenched tend to outlast the reformers . Both Villaraigosa and Bloomberg will move on ;the teacher's union will not. Bloomberg anticipated that and abolished the school boards .A law that would have given Villaraigosa partial authority over the school system was knocked down in court in 2007.

[speechlesstx]

The entrenched are already bleating about lawsuits but Villaraigosa held his ground, "We're not going to be held hostage by a small group of people," Villaraigosa said, referring to the teachers union and other opponents.

I suspect (or hope at least) that the success of schools not run by the entrenched will make it very difficult to return to the glory days where every school sucks.