Audit Faults L.A. School District for Slow Reform

Two years after the initial group of Los Angeles Unified schools embarked on a promising education reform effort, substantial change has occurred at very few schools, according to a first-ever program audit obtained by The Times.

While generally praising the “positive impact” of LEARN on the 13 schools studied, the draft report of findings by McKinsey & Co. primarily blames the district for delays in implementing the reforms, which it says could impede the goal of converting all 650 schools to LEARN campuses by 1998.

The study found that individual school’s progress toward reform has depended greatly on the leadership of their principals. But the school district has not fostered that leadership and has failed to get tough with lagging principals, the audit said.

School board President Mark Slavkin, while agreeing with much of the criticism, pointed out that the consultants intentionally audited a cross-section of the 89 schools involved in the reform program conceived by the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now (LEARN)--from most to least successful.

“Now that we’ve raised expectations at the schools, there’s a frustration that the district is moving too slow to support the changes at the schools,” Slavkin said. “We’re now at a logical point for the district to catch up with what we’ve started at the school sites.”

The audit recommends six ways for the district to hasten reform, ranging from performance evaluations “with teeth” to the resolution of uncertainties over how much budget control local schools will have.

The LEARN board of directors and school district officials will meet for the first time next month to discuss the recommendations, said Robert Wycoff, chairman of the group of executives, civic leaders and educators who developed LEARN and commissioned the audit.

But Wycoff said members were not disheartened by the problems, although they have been frustrated at the slow rate of change.

“We’re encouraged that the McKinsey report did show that all of the schools that have become LEARN schools have benefited from it--some extremely well, others not as well as we would hope,” he said. What the LEARN board “needs to look at is what could help speed this thing along.”

If the district does not agree to make changes to hasten reform, the auditor suggests several “radical options.” Of those, the most controversial is a proposal for LEARN schools to break off and form their own district or sub-district, which would require state legislation.

Rumors that LEARN might be considering such a drastic measure prompted angry responses from the Board of Education at a meeting last month. But on Thursday, LEARN President Mike Roos said he would only turn to such legislation as a last-ditch solution.

“At this point, there is no consensus (on the LEARN board) for anything other than working closely with the district on changing the district culture,” he said.

In focusing on the district’s responsibility to oversee LEARN, the audit appears at first glance to run counter to the intent of reform: to promote school independence by turning over fundamental decisions to teachers, parents and staffers, then holding them accountable for results.

But academics who have studied school reform agree that the district’s nurturing role is key in that process. Central offices “have to shift gears to become . . . helpers, not tellers,” said assistant professor Priscilla Wohlstetter, director of the Center on Educational Governance at USC.

“It can be done in Los Angeles, but people forget that as you’re doing professional development at the school site, likewise you have to do professional development at the district headquarters,” said Wohlstetter, who has been studying school reform nationwide since 1991.

Districts most successful at reform have learned to become information clearinghouses, Wohlstetter said, providing easy access to up-to-date financial information and passing details about promising approaches among schools.

Although some of that is happening in Los Angeles Unified, Slavkin acknowledged that it is piecemeal and “we need to make it systemic.”

The district must not only remove ineffective principals but also revamp training and promotion standards to encourage principals to become reform leaders, Slavkin said. “Historically, they have been used to . . . looking somewhere else for direction.”

Indeed, the audit calls for more training at the district and on campus in how to hasten reforms.

It also recommends “menus” for service costs so that schools--which for the first time under LEARN must develop and adhere to their own budgets--have a better idea of what they must spend on such items as maintenance and transportation.

The McKinsey audit provides the first studied look at the reform movement since LEARN was created three years ago. Its public release comes a day after the 1995 deadline for schools to apply for LEARN status, which drew more than 100 applications--a record level of interest.

That interest increases the urgency that weaknesses identified by the audit be remedied.

“People have underestimated the zeal for reform at the grass-roots school level,” Roos said. “It moves the requirements of pace geometrically upward.”

Some Los Angeles school board members have recently criticized LEARN for its slow pace in producing evidence of student performance gains--which will ultimately be the proof of whether LEARN is working.

“Are they making a difference or are they just wading in the water?” board member Barbara Boudreaux asked earlier this month.

But those closest to the program--in both the district reform and LEARN board camps--say it is too soon to measure performance, even at the first 34 schools. Student assessment cannot begin until the LEARN school stakeholders agree on a plan and set goals, which Roos said takes at least a year.