THE TIMES POLL : An L.A. Teachers Strike Is Justified, Many Say : Majority of city residents also favor school-based management over breaking up the mammoth district.

Los Angeles residents strongly believe that teachers would be justified in striking this month, and more favor empowering individual schools than breaking up the giant Los Angeles Unified School District.

Residents generally have a low opinion of school district administration, which they say wastes and mismanages money. And 60% are dissatisfied with school quality, citing inadequate funding and campuses plagued by crime and gangs as the top problems.

A Los Angeles Times poll, conducted Jan. 28 through Feb. 2, revealed broad support throughout the city and across racial lines for teachers who have vowed to strike Feb. 23 if a new contract offer is not approved. Sixty-nine percent said a strike would be justified, including 54% who believe that it would be strongly justified. One in four people said a strike would not be justified.

Fifty-two percent of those polled have a favorable opinion of the influential teachers union, compared to 30% who have a good impression of the administration.

Sixty-six percent said they believe it is possible for the district to solve its budget problems without cutting teachers’ pay.

The strike threat was prompted by a cumulative 12% pay cut that was imposed on teachers over the last two years to bridge a $400-million budget deficit. The district’s budget this year is $3.9 billion, and pay cuts were ordered for all employees.

United Teachers-Los Angeles President Helen Bernstein said the poll findings offer “validation that teachers do not need to feel isolated and alone. . . . It appears that the general public sees the district priorities as upside-down.”

Despite the public support for a strike, Bernstein said the union’s goal is to reach an agreement and avert the walkout.

School board President Leticia Quezada said she was not surprised by the level of public support for a walkout. She said that she would have expected the number to be higher. “I would have expected overwhelming support because I think teachers have so much public sympathy for the difficult job they have.”

Conducted by Times Poll Director John Brennan, the survey interviewed 1,618 Los Angeles residents, including Anglos, African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans. The poll, which was conducted in English or Spanish, has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

On the volatile issue of breaking up the school district, respondents were asked their opinion on splitting it into many smaller districts, giving individual schools greater control over their budget and curriculum, and allowing San Fernando Valley schools to form their own district.

In recent weeks, dismantling the public school system has been at the forefront of city issues, with Senate Leader David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) leading the movement. He is planning to introduce legislation to create a 25-member commission that would carve the district into at least seven jurisdictions. Voters will probably have final say over the plan, Roberti said.

Many influential African-American and Latino politicians and civil rights advocates have charged that the district breakup is rooted in racism and is an attempt by suburbanites and the more affluent to detach themselves from inner-city troubles.

Support for splintering the district is not strong across the board, and is divided along racial lines.

Fifty-four percent of residents said that breaking the system into many units would be an effective way to aid the system, while 36% called it ineffective and 10% were uncertain.

The sharpest differences were found between Anglos and African-Americans. Sixty-five percent of Anglos favor a split, while 55% of African-Americans oppose it. A slight majority of Latinos, 53%, favor the breakup, while 37% are opposed. The sampling of Asian-Americans was too small to be valid for a separate analysis.

Poll respondent Marquita Johnson, 33, of South Los Angeles said she was opposed to breaking up the district because it would be unfair to children such as her own, bused by choice to schools outside their community.

“The schools in my community are very poor. In my community, the supplies are inadequate, the textbooks are old. Basically, my children would be denied a better education,” Johnson said.

Empowering schools through school-based management was by far the most popular and least divisive proposal, getting 70% approval, with majority support across racial and geographic lines. Anglos, at 77%, are the most supportive of giving the schools greater authority. African-Americans, at 59%, and Latinos, at 66%, were less supportive.

“I think they definitely have to go with school-based management,” said Hollywood resident Brad Hale, 34, another poll participant. “The key thing is to whittle down the power and the size of administration and make them a clearinghouse for things like purchasing. But as far as day-to-day politics, it should be at the local level.”

If breaking up the school district becomes a ballot issue, those who do not have children in the city schools may have disproportionate influence compared to those who do. Public school parents make up 22% of all adults in the city but only 14% of registered voters.

Latino parents, whose children make up 67% of the district’s enrollment, would have a smaller voice. Although nearly three-quarters of Latino parents send their children to public schools, the overwhelming majority of parents are not registered voters.

The support for school-based management could be viewed as a strong endorsement of the restructuring plan that will be presented to the Board of Education on Monday by LEARN, a coalition of local business leaders, educators and parents. The plans seeks to reform the school system by redistributing power to principals, teachers and parents.

The least popular of the breakup options is splitting off the Valley, which was supported by only 48% of those polled. Anglos throughout the city are the most enthusiastic about such a breakup, while African-Americans and Latinos are opposed to it.

In the Valley, where the breakup movement has its roots, nearly three-quarters of residents polled favor school-based management, while the Valley-only split garnered 59% approval.

Mirroring a trend throughout the city, residents are most disturbed by crime in the schools. When asked to name the biggest problems facing the schools, 32% cited crime, gang violence and guns on campus.

“Kids are too afraid to learn and probably aren’t studying that well because they are so busy looking over their shoulders,” said another poll respondent who identified herself as a 58-year-old black woman whose son attends Jordan High School in South-Central Los Angeles. “It’s a terrible thing to worry about whether your child is going to be beat up or shot at school. I just try to block it out of my mind, but it’s hard.”

Three-quarters of residents citywide said they endorse placing metal detectors at the entrances to Los Angeles public schools. After a fatal shooting at Fairfax High School two weeks ago, the district launched a program to screen students for weapons. Hand-held metal detectors were used for the first time Friday at two district campuses.

After crime, a quarter of residents said schools do not receive enough funding and are especially concerned that there is not enough money for new materials and up-to-date textbooks.

When asked whether the bigger problem is inadequate funding or “waste and mismanagement in the spending of current funds,” a firm majority, 68%, cited waste and mismanagement. The agreement was virtually even across the city. Only 22% said insufficient funding was the main problem.

This conflicts with the position of some school board members, who say that the district’s financial woes are rooted in inadequate state funding. Supt. Sid Thompson has called for a management audit of the district and has promised to seriously consider the findings.

Respondents said they favor bilingual education, with Latinos and African-Americans expressing the most support. Eighty-four percent of Latinos and 63% of African-Americans said students who have problems speaking English should have the special programs. Among Anglos, the overall support drops to 50%. But Anglo parents support it by a 61%-36% margin.

The debate over bilingual education has raged across the nation for the better part of two decades, often taking on racial, class and anti-immigrant overtones. The discussion has been particularly sharp in California, which has a rapidly growing immigrant population.

The poll also found significant differences among parents:

* Only 38% of Anglo parents send their children to public schools, and 37% send them to private schools. The remaining parents do not have school-age children. Seventy-one percent of African-American parents and 72% of Latino parents have children in public schools.

* When it comes to income, 72% of parents who earn less than $20,000 a year send their children to public schools, compared to 48% of parents with annual incomes more than $40,000.

* In general, Latino parents have a more favorable opinion of the schools than Anglos and African-Americans, saying that schools are adequate by a 51%-44% margin. More than seven in 10 African-American and Anglo parents find schools inadequate.

* Anglo parents citywide are the harshest critics of school administration, giving it an 80% unfavorable rating. African-American parents give a 70% disapproval rate and Latinos 49%.

* Despite their higher opinion of schools, Latino parents are far more likely than others to cite crime, gangs and guns as the schools’ top problems. African-Americans and Anglos more often cite inadequate funding, low teachers salaries and crowded classrooms.

THE TIMES POLL: Evaluating L.A.’s Schools

Public education is a top concern of Los Angeles city residents. Here are findings on a few key issues relating to school quality and the teachers’ strike threatened later this month.

How would you rate the quality of the education provided for children by your local public schools? Adequate: 33% Inadequate: 60% Don’t Know: 7% *

What do you think is the most important problem facing your public school today? (Up to two answers accepted; top responses listed.) Crime/Gangs: 25% Inadequate funding: 25% Too many students: 11% Teachers not paid enough: 11% Poor quality teachers: 10% Guns in schools: 7% Lack of teacher enthusiasm: 6% *

Do you think the teachers are justified or unjustified in striking over the proposed 12% pay cut? Justified: 69% Unjustified: 25% Don’t know: 6% Source: Times Poll of the city of Los Angeles, Jan. 28-Feb. 2, of 1,618 adults.

How the Poll Was Conducted

The Times Poll interviewed 1,618 Los Angeles adults, including 1,149 registered voters, by telephone between Jan. 28 and Feb. 2. Telephone numbers were chosen from a list of all exchanges in the city. Random-digit dialing techniques were used to ensure that both listed and non-listed numbers could be contacted. Results were weighted slightly to conform with census figures for sex, race, age, education, geography and household size. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. The margin of sampling error for the total sample and the sample of registered voters is plus or minus 3 percentage points. For certain subgroups the error margin is somewhat higher. Poll results can also be affected by other factors, such as the wording of questions and the order in which questions are presented.