Mayor of L.A. Appeals Ruling Against Law On School Governance

Just 10 days before he was to assume partial authority over his city’s public schools, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was forced instead to wage a legal battle to keep alive a new state law that he believes is key to improving the nation’s second-largest school system.

Late last month, lawyers for the first-term mayor appealed a Dec. 21 ruling by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge throwing out the law that would have transferred some management powers over the 708,000-student district to the mayor on Jan. 1.

Judge Dzintra I. Janavs ruled that the law violated the California Constitution, including the school measure’s centerpiece: Mr. Villaraigosa’s bid to directly control three low-performing high schools and the middle and elementary schools that feed into them. Los Angeles Unified School District officials, contending that the measure stripped too much power from the elected school board, filed suit over the law last fall after it was approved by the Democratic-controlled California legislature and Gov....