Mayor Riordan lied to VCT in 1993. He said he would repeal a rule which prohibited the Los Angeles Police Department from cooperating with the INS and he later refused to even talk about it. He could have helped save our schools and the rest of California, but he didn't.

Los Angeles mayor calls education system a 'total failure'

By P.H. FERGUSON
Associated Press Writer

April 7, 1999

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- One week before an important school board election, Mayor Richard Riordan declared the nation's second-largest public school system a "total failure" on Wednesday and blamed its leadership. "Two out of three kids cannot read at grade level by the end of third grade," the mayor said in his annual state-of-the-city address. "This makes my blood boil."

The mayor faulted the board of the Los Angeles Unified School District for stressing "feel-good" subjects over basic math and reading skills. Riordan also used the address to criticize secession efforts in the city, but focused on problems in the vast school district, which is governed by an elected, seven-member board that sets policy, establishes education programs and decides budget matters.

Brad Sayles, a spokesman for district Superintendent Ruben Zacarias, said the mayor got some of his facts wrong. "It's a typical Riordan approach. He dwells on the negative," Sayles said. Third graders are behind in reading because of language issues, and not bad teachers, Sayles said. Many of the district's students are immigrants.

For the rest, see the Sacramento Bee

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