L.A. Schools to Use Grant to Overhaul Math and Sciences : Education: Teachers will receive special training as district makes concerted effort to counter its dismal CLAS scores.

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s top administrator Thursday unveiled details of a districtwide math and science education overhaul, built on the backbone of a national grant received earlier this year.

With what he called “a blueprint for the 21st Century,” Supt. Sid Thompson said he hopes not only to improve the dismal test scores of district students, but also to better prepare them for an increasingly technological society.

“We cannot allow our young people not to be in the mainstream,” Thompson said during a presentation to school board members.

The overhaul begins with training in July of 100 teachers in new instruction approaches--such as hands-on science and concept-oriented math. Those teachers are expected to return to their schools and train others as part of a process that district spokesman Bill Rivera described as like dropping a pebble in the water and watching “the circles radiate outward.”

The outline of the plan was released in February, when the district received a five-year, $15-million grant from the National Science Foundation. Interest in it heightened this month when the district learned that its California Learning Assessment System scores in mathematics were among the lowest in the state for the second year in a row.

The teachers union views the overhaul as welcome classroom-based reform, said United Teachers-Los Angeles President Helen Bernstein. But Bernstein is concerned that funding is inadequate.

The federal grant will only provide $2 million in the first year, pocket change in the district’s $4.2-billion budget. Additional funding will come largely from the schools’ regular budgets, which Thompson said are already stretched thin.

“It’s a drop in the bucket and that’s a real shame,” Bernstein said. The National Science Foundation “really didn’t look at the fact that you have to train every teacher in order to enact systemic change.”

The first 100 schools will be chosen in the coming months from 200 that have been nominated by a panel of teachers. At the end of five years, all 541 regular district schools are to be included.

Among the goals the participating schools must achieve after the first year are:

* Increasing by 10% the number of students receiving a “C” grade or better in math and science classes.

* Increasing by 10% the number of eighth-graders completing algebra I.

* Channeling more non-English-speaking students into math and science classes, with a bilingual teacher wherever possible. Realistically, Thompson said, they usually will be taught in English and tutored by a bilingual aide.

Now, nearly half of Los Angeles Unified’s 636,000 students speak little or no English and serving them through the plan may be the greatest hurdle of all, board members said.

“We are falling far short with our students who don’t speak English,” said board member Leticia Quezada, who helped guide the grant application. “So our challenge is enormous.”