PERSPECTIVE ON LAUSD : Give Schools Credit; Kids, a Chance : No other institution touches so many lives; rather than attack it, applaud its successes and work toward more.

Instead of recognizing the challenges faced by the Los Angeles public school system and applauding and supporting its accomplishments and those of the people who work in it, we blame the schools for every social change that has frightened and disoriented the body politic in California. Debates in the City Council and the Legislature featured such rhetorical overkill in describing the Los Angeles Unified School District as “the black hole of education,” “a sinking ship,” “a vast wasteland,” “a miserable failure.”

With many problems in Los Angeles, it is not surprising that people would look for a scapegoat for the city’s troubles. Consider these facts about the Los Angeles schools:

* 87% of the students are minority (African-American, Latino, Asian, etc.), a much greater percentage than the city. On the Board of Education, two members are Latina, one is African-American, one is Asian-American, two are Jewish and one is gay.

* 40% of the students speak a language other than English. (Considering the upsurge in anti-immigrant feelings, the district’s identification with immigrant students in the public mind may be its greatest political liability.)

* The district has developed a comprehensive bilingual education program, which has become a national model.

* Most of the students are poor, and more than 60% qualify for federal free-meal programs.

* Although they are a small minority of the total, too many L.A. teen-agers have joined gangs and written on walls.

* The district is big--more than 640,000 students, 80,000 employees, a large central office, big warehouses, etc.

* The employee unions of the LAUSD are tough and aggressive, especially the United Teachers of Los Angeles.

* The Board of Education has embarked on such controversial projects as distributing condoms to protect students from AIDS, granting the right to vote to non-citizens and extending help to gay and lesbian students.

Yes, there is something for everyone to hate. Not that there aren’t plenty of real, undeniable, demonstrable problems in our schools. The violence that has choked the city is now seeping into the schools. The school district bureaucracy, like all bureaucracies, has a tendency to become inflexible and unresponsive and it must be trimmed down and shaken up periodically.

The economic decline has thrust onto the schools many responsibilities for nutrition, health care and emotional nurturing for which they are under-equipped and underfunded. The virtual disappearance of factory jobs means that the schools must prepare students for high-tech jobs requiring much more than the simple literacy adequate for yesterday’s assembly line. The presence of students from more than 100 cultural and language backgrounds will be our city’s strength and glory some day, but for now it is a heavy responsibility, one that the federal government has largely shirked.

Confronted with these and other challenges at a time of dwindling resources, we should not be surprised that the schools haven’t achieved all that we ask of them. Considering that California has sunk in the past 20 years to 41st among the states in the level of per-student spending, we should instead applaud and marvel at the relative level of success while we make plans to accomplish more. At least there is a school open and functioning in even the poorest and roughest neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Contrast this with supermarkets, banks, housing and many other private enterprises that have all but abandoned vast sections of our city because it isn’t profitable to operate there.

Given all the problems that face our schools, consider these achievements of the LAUSD:

* The percentage of graduates enrolling in a California public college or university increased for the fourth year in a row, for the class of 1992, to 20% from 17%, which is higher than the statewide average. The increases were even more dramatic for African-American and Latino students.

* More than 6,500 high school students passed one or more advanced placement exams equivalent to college credit. This is higher than the state average.

* Academic decathlon teams from LAUSD high schools have dominated this competition in the state and nation over the seven years of its existence.

* The dropout rate was 36.9% for the class of 1992, down from 42.7% in 1986.

* Last year, more than 10,000 formerly non-English-speaking students demonstrated their fluency in English after completing the bilingual program. The group scored the highest of any on standardized tests, even higher than English-only students.

In the process of cutting more than $1 billion from its budget over the past four years while the student population grew by more than 30,000, the LAUSD has reduced its central administration by 44% and now spends a smaller percentage of its budget on central offices and services than any other district in the county. Fully 91% of district employees work at the school sites; 64% are in the classroom.

The Board of Education unanimously approved the radical restructuring of the district recommended by the LEARN group and by the Arthur Andersen management review. The LAUSD has granted nine charter-school petitions out of only 40 in California.

Every day in Los Angeles, hundreds of thousands of children, young people and adults attend class in the district. Our public-school system is the only institution in our community that reaches into every neighborhood and includes every racial and ethnic group in our troubled city. Every day, teachers in Los Angeles face classrooms filled with children from the four corners of the world, many of whom are suffering the brunt of the recession. Every day, these children learn a little more English, a little more reading and math, develop their physical skills, read a book, write a paragraph, paint a picture, sing a song. And every year, tens of thousands of high school seniors receive diplomas and go on to higher education. No other institution touches so many lives; none is so crucial to the future of our city. Remember this the next time you’re tempted to blame the “black hole” of the LAUSD for all the city’s problems. Give our schools a little credit; give our children a chance.