Local News in Brief : L.A. Schools Rated Poorly

Public schools in Los Angeles, Pasadena and Pomona scored well below the national median of 58 on an “effective schools index” in what is sure to be a controversial book to be published this month.

The three districts were among 24 in the country scoring less than 30, earning scores of 28, 23 and 29, respectively, on a scale of 0-100.

Many California districts scored lower because of property-tax cutting Proposition 13, passed in 1978, said veteran education writer Charles H. Harrison.

Harrison’s guide to about 500 metropolitan school districts, “Public Schools USA,” found what is already generally known: Big cities generally scored lowest and wealthy suburbs highest.

Each district is rated on an index Harrison developed, covering 10 criteria, ranging from average daily attendance to teacher-student ratios. The book also assessed each district’s “quality of school leadership, instruction and school environment,” based on information from about 1,000 local education reporters, parent groups and others.

Several major metropolitan areas--New York City, Boston, Detroit, New Orleans and San Francisco--are omitted because they did not respond to the writer’s mailed statistical questionnaires. Thousands of other districts were left out because they have fewer than 2,500 students or are more than 25 miles from one of the guide’s 52 core cities.