3 Valley Schools Among 100 Applying to Join LEARN

More than 100 Los Angeles Unified schools applied to join the reform movement known as LEARN as the 1995 deadline arrived Wednesday, a record level of interest since the educational experiment began two years ago.

The applicants included at least three San Fernando Valley high schools--Taft, Canoga Park and El Camino.

“We’ve been overwhelmed by the number of applications,” said Mike Roos, a former state assemblyman who crafted LEARN, the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now, with the help of business, civic and educational leaders.

LEARN seeks to improve student achievement by allowing teachers, parents and principals the autonomy to design their own educational programs and then hold them accountable for the results. Before a school can apply for LEARN status, it must develop a detailed plan of action and obtain a vote of approval from 75% of its faculty.

As the 5 p.m. deadline approached on Wednesday, Assistant Supt. Judy Burton--who coordinates LEARN implementation--attributed this year’s application increase to extensive networking by the existing 89 LEARN schools, which have offered workshops and on-site visits to other schools.

Schools also had the added incentive this year of $53 million in education reform grants from the Annenberg Foundation. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, schools must be part of the LEARN program to receive a share of the money.

If all the current applications are accepted by the Board of Education at its April 17 meeting, it would bring the total number of LEARN schools to nearly 200, representing almost a third of the district’s schools.

Burton expressed some concerns that such a large increase might strain the LEARN implementation process.

“We are eager to try to find a way to respond to the incredible interest that we had from schools this year,” Burton said. “But I don’t know how it will work out yet.”