A bill introduced by state Sen. Gloria Romero would allow the mayor of Los Angeles to appoint members to an expanded school board. See L.A. Times story here. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is sending mixed signals on the issue. He has called for mayoral control of the nation’s second-largest school district, but responded to Romero’s bill by saying he would rather “build trust and confidence” around the idea of mayoral control by first appointing a panel of experts to tell him what the silver bullet is when it comes to urban school reform. Hopefully, the Purple Pen lobby will be adequately represented on the panel. The LAT story adequately captures the predictable hand-wringing from representatives of the local education cartel. For her part, Romero comes off sounding like she actually means business: “People can have all the commissions they want, but I want action. At the end of the day, you need to have some teeth to get anything done.”
UPDATE: More on Villaraigosa’s position here.
— Joe Williams