<p><a target=_blank href=/graphics/2007/01/09/ns.villaraigosa.gfx.1_9.BIG.jpg><img hspace=5 align=left src=/graphics/2007/01/09/ns.villaraigosa.gfx.1_9.sma.jpg></a>Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa plans to appeal a ruling that rejected his attempts to garner more control over part of Los Angeles Unified School District to the state Supreme Court, his office announced Monday. <br/>In September 2006, the state legislature approved a measure that would have given Villaraigosa control over three LAUSD high schools, as well as the elementary and middle schools that feed into them, starting in July 2007. <br/>Increasing high school dropout rates, among other concerns with student performance, led Villaraigosa to conclude that leaders within the district were not being held accountable enough for district improvement, the mayor has said. <br/>?Voters need to be able to hire and fire one person accountable to parents, teachers and taxpayers, a leader who is ultimately responsible for systemwide performance,? Villaraigosa said in April 2006 when he announced his intent to take over the second-largest school district in the nation. <br/>Had Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs not decided the measure was a violation of the state constitution and Los Angeles City Charter, the law would have gone into effect Jan. 1. Under the law, Los Angeles would follow in the footsteps of Chicago and New York, whose mayors also control those cities? school districts. <br/>Though the mayor?s oversight of the district is still uncertain, LAUSD is preparing for Villaraigosa?s potential leadership position, said Lucy Okumu, director of external affairs for LAUSD. <br/>?We?ve talked with the mayor about what changes would need to happen,? Okumu said. ?But until we have clarity from the courts, we remain in a planning stage.? <br/>As part of the planning, Villaraigosa and LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer have continued to conduct meetings on a weekly basis to discuss reform within the district, in which approximately 30 percent of students drop out of high school. <br/>Okumu said legislation was not necessary to establish a partnership between the mayor and LAUSD. <br/>She added that working on getting cleaner housing, safer neighborhoods and better after-school programs in order to improve the learning environment for LAUSD students ?is work we can do now.? <br/>But the appeals process is now jeopardizing deadlines that had been set earlier in the legislative process. <br/>Brewer and the mayor had agreed to decide which schools would make up the first ?cluster? to be taken over by Feb. 1, and the second cluster is set to be determined by March 1. <br/>But Brewer has decided not to discuss which schools would be taken over until the law is ruled constitutional. <br/>Neither the superintendant nor the mayor?s office has discussed changes to the deadlines yet. <br/>Appeals to the state Supreme Court have been known to take more than a year to resolve, but so far, Villaraigosa?s office remains confident that his oversight of a portion of the district will still begin in July 2007, said mayoral spokeswoman Janelle Erickson. <br/>Villaraigosa?s office is taking it as a good sign that the District Court accepted the mayor?s request for an expedited hearing within the next month, Erickson said. <br/>?They recognize there?s an urgency to the case and they are moving quickly,? she said. ?It is our hope that the state Supreme Court will also move in an expedited manner, but it is hard to predict.? <br/>She added that the mayor is more concerned with the state of the school district than with the possibility of missing deadlines for the initiative. <br/>?The mayor is aggressively moving forward on his plans to turn around some of our lowest-performing schools,? Erickson said. ?The mayor remains focused on the classroom, not the courtroom.?</p><br><br><a href='; target='_blank'>;