L.A. Schools Vote to Decentralize Power : Education: The reform package, devised by LEARN, represents a rare show of unity for business interests, educators, labor unions and community groups.

In what educators and community leaders hailed as a historic reform, the Los Angeles Board of Educaton on Monday unanimously adopted a sweeping set of changes intended to raise student achievement and restore public confidence in the nation’s second-largest school district.

Proposed by a coalition of business, education and civic leaders, the reforms are designed to shift power from the school district’s central bureaucracy to local campuses, set clear standards for student achievement and hold teachers and principals accountable for school performance.

“The problems that face Los Angeles are national problems,” said Mike Roos, president of the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now (LEARN), which spent two years developing the reform package.

“Our democracy will look very different 25 years from now if we don’t get our hands around public education in our nation’s urban school districts.”

Although implementing the reforms districtwide will provide major challenges for the cash-strapped school system, the package represents a rare show of unity for the city’s business interests, education Establishment, school labor unions and community groups.

Roos has pledged to raise $3 million from businesses and foundations to introduce the reforms in 30 of the district’s 650 schools beginning this summer.

The broad-based campaign for school changes began more than two years ago as an outgrowth of the parent-driven Kids First campaign and drew on reforms tested in school districts nationwide.

“People around this country are watching and see this as a model for what happens when people come together to support public schools,” said board member Mark Slavkin. “This has been a communitywide process for embracing school reform.”

The 7-0 vote to approve the LEARN plan came before an auditorium packed with the group’s supporters. A parade of children carried laundry baskets full of signed petitions endorsing the group’s effort to board members and the USC jazz band entertained at a rally outside.

Board member Jeff Horton likened the emotional debate over school reform to the feelings generated by historic changes in school organization, including 15 years ago over court-ordered desegregation.

“The message of LEARN is care about your schools, care about the kids who go there, get involved to make a difference,” Horton said. “We have never seen such broad participation in a school reform movement in the history of this district.”

Board members expressed concerns about how the district will be able to afford the LEARN plan, which would provide on-campus social services, a training academy for teachers and principals, and a broader curriculum for students at every grade level.

But Roos predicted that government and private funding for education will increase if Los Angeles public schools demonstrate an improvement through the reforms.