A Dream Come True--LEARN Program Would Reshape the Face of L.A. Classes

Superior Junior High School is a fantasy, created here to illustrate what school would be like if the reforms proposed by the LEARN coalition become a reality.

Some of these reforms would require years of bureaucratic change, while others could be made quickly. A handful of campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District have adopted some of these reforms. Other changes require an injection of new money--either from the state or from LEARN’s corporate sponsors.

Today at Superior Junior High, eight parents have taken time off from their jobs with local companies to work as classroom aides. Under an agreement reached between those businesses and Superior’s principal, Art Goode, parents at those firms are given a week off with pay each year to help out at the school.

Other parents are headed toward Room 23, which has been turned into a parent resource and social service room, filled with pamphlets and videotapes to improve parenting skills. One day a week, Los Angeles County child welfare, mental health and probation workers schedule appointments in Room 23 for parents and children who need counseling or other help.

In Superior’s classrooms, “team teaching” is emphasized. Teachers are given a common planning period each day to coordinate their instruction. Interdisciplinary, “real-world” projects that students conduct outside the classroom are emphasized.

Today, a group of Superior students is on the playground taking air-quality readings as part of science class. Later, the students will write reports of their findings in English class and study environmental regulations during their social studies period.

Students still take some traditional exams, but their grades are largely determined by the “portfolio” of collaborative projects they do with other students.

Teachers are given more freedom to judge how a student is learning, and all teachers, regardless of experience, have studied new student assessment techniques in training stints at the district’s teaching academy.

Exemplary teachers also have greater opportunities. Superior’s best teacher is about to leave for a two-year sabbatical, working as a trouble-shooter on other campuses for the district’s new “Office of Excellence.”

Over in another classroom, a “master teacher,” trained at the district’s academy, is observing one of the school’s newest instructors give an English lesson. The master teacher acts as a coach for new instructors during the two-year apprenticeship they must serve before being offered permanent employment.

Back in the principal’s office, Goode is putting the finishing touches on a winter break program, in which every Superior seventh-grader will be offered a weeklong internship at a local business.

Goode, who like all principals is under a three-year contract, has wide powers over how the school is run. He can hire and fire staff. He can seek space in a nearby, vacant office building to compensate for limited classroom space. He can turn a vice principal position into a teaching slot if he feels his campus is low on instructors. He can unilaterally change the hours that class is in session. He can cut his own deal with the local McDonald’s to replace school district food services.

However, Goode can also lose his job if the school performs badly--if test scores fall or graduation rates dip, or if the school community wants to get rid of him. A majority vote by any group of “stakeholders”--teachers, parents or non-teaching staff--can trigger a visit by a school district “mediation” team. A majority vote by any two of those groups can result in the principal’s transfer.

Goode encourages his teachers to attend a variety of training workshops. In the past he had to beg his Parent-Teacher Assn. to pay for this. Now, his teachers can be kept on the payroll for 12 months while they attend job development seminars. If Superior shows big improvements in student achievement, teachers will be awarded more training opportunities.

Under the new decentralization philosophy, Goode is given a budget for all the school’s costs. If he finishes the year under budget, he can use the money next year as he sees fit.