Reports on Schools Available to Public

The Los Angeles Unified School District is releasing the first of what will become detailed annual reports for every elementary, junior high and senior high school in the district. Each of the district’s nearly 650 schools has its report, and copies can be obtained by contacting the school’s office.

The state-required reports include information on such topics as standardized test scores; counseling, medical and other services available to students; the school’s educational goals; attendance and dropout rates; ethnic makeup of the students; class size; amounts spent on various programs; textbooks and other teaching materials; discipline and school facilities, and safety.

The annual reports were required for every school in California as part of a successful 1988 ballot measure that improved school funding in exchange for better accountability. This year, reports on the 1988-89 school year are due by the end of this month. From now on, the annual reviews must be completed in November and made available by the school to anyone who asks for them.

Los Angeles Supt. Leonard Britton said the reports are supposed to provide a “method by which parents and the public will be able to become more informed about how schools are meeting their educational goals, how resources are being used to serve students, the successes schools have had and the areas in which improvements may be needed.”

The State Department of Education has a separate, years-old program of issuing high school “report cards” annually, but those are not as comprehensive as the new reviews.