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I was recently asked about the ongoing battle between LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s bid to take over the LAUSD and the ensuing battle. My friend and career teacher Peter J. Ford III, who presently teaches in Inglewood, California, penned his analysis.

From the eyes of a classroom teacher, I view Mayor Villaraigosa’s (Mayor ‘V’) current setback of LAUSD control as little more than an extra element of entertainment to this humorous, yet insidious sideshow. When finally resolved, union bosses and politicians will win big but, as always, the children will be last in line – if they arrive at all.

This saga is only the latest chapter in the book of “use education as a stepping stone for your ambitions.” As a teacher, I’ve seen substitutes who were aspiring actors, choosing to teach while “in between jobs.” I’ve had colleagues who were simply waiting to get accepted into law or medical school and, after 2-3 years, were gone. I’ve had others who openly say (at least they were honest) they wanted to teach for 2-5 years then “go into policy.”

Assembly Bill (AB) 1381 is a façade that makes its writers and supporters feel good about themselves. Their self-congratulatory, “See, look what I did!” does nothing to help children. AB 1381 gives the mayor no authority to encourage and grow the pool of quality mathematics and science teachers LAUSD desperately needs in all schools, not just the urban ones.

The next time any politician demands “resources in the classroom,” ask him or her to quantify their statement; does it mean giving each teacher a full-time aide who actually teaches and maybe a $2000/year stipend to buy anything their classroom needs? Does it mean paying teachers for all their education expenses and demanding they take at least 6 credit hours every 18 months of pedagogy/content study at a quality institute? Will it reduce the counselor-to-student ratio to 150:1 so the counselor is responsible for at least as many students as teachers are? AB 1381 gives no authority or resources to increase the instructional day to 6-8 pm where it needs to be (after school tutoring) and on Saturdays. As a classroom teacher, these are reforms that would impact learning. AB 1381 addresses none of these, unless you’re part of Mayor V’s small ‘cluster’ of underperforming schools.

AB 1381 allows the Mayor to have more direct control of a group of underperforming high schools and their feeder middle schools. Mayor V has already lined up several large financial donations from the Gates Foundation and others, but the sad truth is that he will chose a small cluster of low-performing schools in America’s second largest ‘target-rich environment’ of under-performing schools; there are so many throughout LAUSD that the few he chooses will still leave hundreds of thousands of young people behind. Is Mayor V going to ‘buck heads’ with United Teachers of Los Angeles and strong-arm better teachers into these schools? He’s already cut a ‘back room’ deal with UTLA to win their support for his takeover – a deal that prevents the Mayor from participating in union contract negotiations, thus exempting UTLA (our children’s biggest enemy) from his takeover.

Will Villaraigosa pressure or cut deals with LAUSD to ‘grease the bureaucratic skids’ so that his schools get what they need when they need it? Assuming the money and resources get to his schools, will that affect student learning in other LAUSD schools if it’s spent the same way?

What about the rest of LAUSD? As a classroom teacher, all of this sizzle and show raises political profiles, but it does little for young people in the classroom. Villaraigosa will use it to run for governor, and other supporters will use it to run at the State Assembly/Senate or city council, but our children will still need quality math and science teachers, and a place to study well past 3:00 pm.

Any successful enterprise knows it takes 5 years after you’ve implemented change to see measurable outcomes. Assuming AB 1381 gets a ‘final’ decision in the courts in 2007, 2012 will arrive before we see any real change: Oops, that’s when Mayor V is running for governor of California, which of course is his way station towards 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Since aspiring politicians these days are in perpetual ‘campaign mode,’ AB 1381 will become a political issue (again) well before it’s done anything meaningful for young people. When a school can hire who they need, reward high-performance teachers, manage the school population, and remove students, parents, teachers, and administrators who interfere with learning, students will learn.

AB 1381 addresses none of these issues. So while many politicians and union bosses will benefit from the politics of AB 1381, our young people will be left with scraps from the table.

Clark Baker lives in California.  This ran originally on his blog, Ex-Liberal in Hollywood.