Supt. Villaraigosa

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa takes on one of the biggest challenges of his career today as his partnership to reform education formally begins working with some of Los Angeles' worst-performing schools. Daily News.

The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools initially will team up with Roosevelt High School and the Santee Education Complex as about 20,000 students return for the summer session.

But they will soon be followed by students at Hollenbeck, Stevenson, Gompers and Markham middle schools and Ritter, 99th, Figueroa and Sunrise elementary schools.

And the stakes are high for the five-year pilot reform effort to prove that urban school districts can succeed in a move that could further escalate calls to break up the nation's second-largest district.