SACRAMENTO, CA - If you want a conservative knee to jerk, mention local control. Conservatives believe that it's better to have policy decisions made by government units closest to the people because this gives the public more control over those decisions. This argument is usually sensible, but not always. Take, for example, the deal over mayoral takeover of the Los Angeles schools and the recent fight over curriculum materials for limited-English-speaking students.

In the compromise agreement involving LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's effort to gain control of the city's schools, Villaraigosa's clean takeover bid was muddied up considerably in order to avoid a fight with the powerful Los Angeles teachers union. The deal is now sailing through the state legislature and parts of it seem to increase local control. In the past, the seven-member Los Angeles school board chose the school district superintendent. But now Villaraigosa and a council of mayors of all 27 cities served by the district will have the final say over the superintendent choice and budget decisions.

The teachers union, which originally opposed Villaraigosa's initiative but now supports the compromise, is ecstatic over extracting from the mayor a seeming victory for local control. According to the Los Angeles Times, under the agreement, "Teachers and principals . . . would have new authority to shape classroom instruction, loosening the district's reins on how best to teach - a change the union has vociferously sought for years.'' What's wrong with school-site educators getting  more control over instructional methods and curriculum? 'Potentially, a lot,'' says Doug Lasken, an English teacher at Taft High School in Los Angeles.

Writing in the Los Angeles Daily News, Lasken, warns that the teachers union sees the compromise deal as a way to undermine the successful phonics reading program that the state recommends and the district has implemented. The union has been a historic supporter of the failed whole-language reading approach, which minimizes sounding out words and believes that children can teach themselves to read.

According to Lasken: "The tacit promise of local control of curriculum, in the minds of many, is that under the mayor's plan neither the state nor the district would have the authority to mandate explicit phonics instruction. This could help explain why the unions, whose curriculum mavens loved whole language, did its switcheroo.'' This would be a disaster, observes Lasken, since "no one denies that [the district's phonics reading program] has produced higher elementary reading scores every year since its implementation six years ago.''

In the controversy over curriculum materials for limited-English-speaking students, one of the main issues seems to involve local control. Current state policy requires English language learner (ELL) students to use the subject-matter textbooks used by mainstream students, with added English instruction during the school day. Enter State Sen. Marta Escutia (D-Norwalk) who has authored a bill, SB 1769, that would make available subject-matter curriculum materials for ELL students that are supposedly tailored to their limited English abilities. Local school districts would be able to choose this new curriculum or stick with the existing approach. Sounds reasonable until one considers the important implications of this change.

Under the current system, ELL students are immersed in English, taking classes with their English-speaking classmates, using the same curriculum materials and having supplemental English-language instruction. This approach is working, with 47 percent of ELL students testing "advanced'' in English proficiency in 2004 compared to 35 percent in 2002. Yet, the rate at which ELL students are reclassified as "fluent'' in English is way below these percentages mostly because of discretionary decisions by local districts to delay re-designation. Districts receive extra federal and state tax dollars based on the number of ELL students in their schools.

Escutia's bill, therefore, would give these same districts the opportunity to use a potentially less rigorous curriculum that, according to Sacramento Bee columnist Peter Schrag, could result in the "formal resegregation of immigrant kids in California schools.'' If the ELL kids flounder, which they likely will, the districts still get the added federal and state money.

Local control is a good thing if it gives real control to the people and their representatives. This noble objective is perverted, however, if it merely gives special interests more power to implement failed policies. In analyzing policy, what works, not knee jerks, must be our standard.

Lance T. Izumi is Director of Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute. He can be reached via email at
lizumi@pacificresearch.org.