Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is following Fresno Mayor Alan Autry in trying to take over the school system in his community. While Autry failed to get the support to change the law, Villaraigosa has a much better chance of getting a special bill passed in the Legislature because he's the former speaker of the California Assembly and still has plenty of pals in Sacramento.

No matter. It's still a bad idea. Here's my column in today's Bee in which I point out the problems with Villaraigosa's effort to take over the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Villaraigosa, like Autry before him, can help the schools by doing his job as mayor. School test scores follow the poverty line. Improve the economic plight of Los Angeles and it will help the children of L.A. Unified.

Is the city of Los Angeles running so smoothly that Villaraigosa can now turn his attention to the Los Angeles school system? Tell that to all the people complaining about City Hall's lack of responsiveness to their problems.