Multiple choice for reform path - Parents and teachers at seven troubled schools will decide whether to join Villaraigosa's plan or stick with LAUSD's.

Teachers and parents at seven low-performing middle and high schools will decide Tuesday whether to join Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in his effort to dramatically remake their schools. Those campuses are in line for what the mayor said are historic infusions of money and more authority.

This week's balloting will culminate months of hard-charging organizing in neighborhoods and schools by the mayor, his allies and staff. Villaraigosa tried to close the deal himself last week by repeatedly visiting Eastside and South Los Angeles schools, meeting separately with teachers and parents at Roosevelt High, Jordan High and the Santee Education Complex. He and his staff also have made multiple visits to four middle schools that feed into those high schools.

"I want to ensure that teachers have a voice," he told instructors at Jordan. "We want to create a partnership with teachers, classified [non-teaching employees] and parents."

The mayor's overtures received a mix of enthusiasm, skepticism and uncertainty. Villaraigosa made his entreaties even as Los Angeles Unified School District officials develop their own strategy for low-achieving schools, including those courted by the mayor. The school board is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a plan proposed by Supt. David L. Brewer.

The mayor has said that the partnership would operate only in communities and schools that invite it. For schools to participate, a majority of teachers on each campus must vote yes as well as a majority of parents who choose to vote.

Specifics of how schools will operate under Villaraigosa's partnership will be worked out on individual campuses, the mayor said. Responding to numerous questions from teachers, he said repeatedly that he wants schools to come up with their own solutions and make decisions on curriculum and budgets independent of the central bureaucracy.

"The specific plan," Villaraigosa said to parents at Roosevelt, "is going to be developed and created by you in the schools."

Villaraigosa's tack is strategic as well as philosophical because the veteran politician knows he has an election to win. He's emphasizing local control and funding, while speaking generically about possibly contentious issues, such as what would happen to ineffective teachers or exactly how much progress schools would need to make.

"We've got to have the vote first," he said in an interview Friday. "You can't put the cart before the horse."