LEARN Launches Publicity Campaign : Education: The organization seeks a higher profile to promote L.A. school reforms. It hopes to counter a move to break up the district.

Hoping to turn public attention away from the movement to break apart the Los Angeles Unified School District, the reform group LEARN is launching a media campaign today to raise the group’s profile and publicize its proposed changes.

The coalition of corporate executives, education activists and community leaders will spend $600,000 to $800,000 on nine days of radio commercials, newspaper advertisements, movie trailers and a mass mailing to 1 million households.

The campaign is intended to generate a show of support for the group’s proposed reforms and counteract the publicity garnered by the breakup drive.

The breakup movement “has penetrated the consciousness of everyone,” LEARN President Mike Roos said. “We’ve got to do the same thing with LEARN.”

The campaign will feature actor Edward James Olmos and the message that public schools are in crisis and LEARN offers the best hope for immediate changes in the structure of the district, Roos said. The group will publicize its toll-free information line, and callers can receive copies of the LEARN plan, as well as petitions urging the school board to adopt the reforms.

In the next three weeks, Roos hopes LEARN supporters will collect at least 50,000 signatures on the petitions, which will be presented to the school board on March 8, when it is scheduled to vote on whether to adopt the reform package.

LEARN--the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now--was created two years ago by a group of businessmen, parents and education activists to overhaul education in the city’s 640,000-student public school system.

Its reform package would broaden teacher training, grant local campuses more autonomy, allow parents to choose among the district’s schools and hold school staffs accountable for student performance. It was unveiled last week and will probably be approved by the board next month.

Roos would like the reforms initiated in at least 30 of the district’s 650 schools in August and has promised to foot the $3.3-million bill for the start-up phase through private donations.

But the package will need widespread public support to succeed and spread through the mammoth school system, and its proponents fear that the campaign to dismantle the district will dilute support by offering an alternative to people dissatisfied with the city’s schools.

State Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) has introduced legislation in Sacramento that would create a panel to divide the school system into at least seven districts. The new district boundaries would be subject to the approval of voters in the November, 1994, election.

Roberti contends that the proposed breakup does not conflict with the LEARN plan--that the reforms could be implemented in the new, smaller districts.

“I don’t view what I’m trying to do as inconsistent with what LEARN is trying to do,” Roberti said. “The reforms LEARN is talking about could work just as well--maybe better--in the smaller districts that we’re proposing.”

In the six months since Roberti got behind the breakup drive, the idea has catapulted to the top of the city’s political agenda and become a potent force in the race for Los Angeles mayor. Several candidates--including LEARN co-founder Richard Riordan--are campaigning on the issue of breaking up the district.

The LEARN Proposal

LEARN, the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now, has presented the Los Angeles Board of Education with a plan to improve the city’s public schools. Here are a few highlights.

Give parents more choice in which schools their children attend and more opportunities to be involved in campus decision-making.

Offer social services, such as counseling and medical care, on campus for needy children and their families.

Provide better--and continuing--training for teachers and principals.

Allow principals to make virtually all campus spending decisions.

Raise standards for student achievement and hold school staffs accountable for pupils’ performance.