L.A. should vote, S.F. says

Mayor Villaraigosa took his LAUSD campaign to UTLA's leaders on Sunday in La Quinta and got a good reaction, despite some catcalls at the start. Up north in San Francisco, however, the Chronicle editorialized today that Los Angeles residents should be voting on the big governance changes that the Legislature is poised to approve this week.

Both Sacramento and Washington are running roughshod over a basic principle of the educational system in the United States: our schools are supposed to be administered by locally elected school boards....

This is the kind of decision that shouldn't be made in the clubby atmosphere of Sacramento, where most legislators have no direct stake in the quality of L.A. schools. The decision on how best to run a school district should be made by local voters. But Los Angeles voters will not be given an opportunity to weigh in on the issue -- probably because there is at least an even chance they'll reject it.

Also in Sacramento: Thirty Democratic operatives -- pollsters, consultants and spokespeople -- will launch the California Majority Report website (apparently password protected) at midnight with a party at Mason's in downtown Sacramento. Gray Davis is billed as the special guest, the Bee says, calling the Democrats' site a counterpart to the Republicans' FlashReport.