Parity

By the time Andrew Arce was 15 months old, his parents suspected he was autistic. He refused to cuddle, flapped his arms and stared into space a lot. On occasion, he picked at his nose until it drew blood and, with it, smeared the walls of the family's Pasadena town house. It was nearly a year, Guillermo Arce said, before Kaiser Permanente, the family's healthcare provider, confirmed their fears. The diagnosis wasn't much help, though.

The state Board of Education will decide today whether to hold local public hearings on proposed regulations that critics say could stymie efforts to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District. The proposed regulations, prepared by the state Department of Education, would require strict standards of racial and socioeconomic parity among any new school districts split off from the Los Angeles district. State Sen.