Eastin Seeks Separate L.A. District for LEARN Program

The state Department of Education has actively entered negotiations with the Los Angeles Unified School District aimed at making its LEARN reform program one of the state’s new “challenge” districts, freeing the schools from most state controls in exchange for a commitment to improve student achievement.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin is to propose the creation of what amounts to an independent LEARN district within Los Angeles Unified today, at the first summit of all 192 schools involved in the district’s largest reform effort.

The goals of the challenge district program are nearly identical to those of LEARN, started by leaders of the city’s business, political and education communities and adopted by the school board three years ago.

And the state program’s promise of additional freedom is warmly greeted by those guiding Los Angeles’ LEARN schools, who have become increasingly frustrated by roadblocks to reform.

“Schools are ready to take off and a lot feel they are hitting a ceiling of standard regulations,” said Mike Roos, LEARN’s president.

Many details remain to be resolved, such as who will control how campuses spend the block grants provided by the challenge program and how much leeway will be granted individual schools to change such standards as class size and length of the school year.

But even a slight loosening of the regulations that many feel have choked LEARN reforms may reinvigorate creativity.

Now, “everything we do is bureaucratically hard; it would be lovely to have it bureaucratically easy,” said Ruth Bunyan, principal at Roscoe Elementary in the San Fernando Valley, one of Los Angeles’ first LEARN schools. “There are certain things we haven’t even talked about because we know they can’t be done.”

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Los Angeles Unified Supt. Sid Thompson and others emphasized that LEARN would not actually split from Los Angeles Unified under the state program, but would operate under more liberal rules than the system’s 470 other schools. Those schools could eventually receive the same advantages because the district’s goal is for all 660 campuses to join LEARN by 1999.

Under the challenge program conceived by Eastin, districts would be required to establish higher achievement standards and tougher graduation requirements, as well as to reduce dropout rates and make campuses safer in exchange for freedom from most of the tenets of the state Education Code, which governs everything from length of the school day to qualifications of teachers.

Since Eastin’s announcement last Friday, dozens of eager districts have called the state Department of Education to volunteer, and the original group of nine districts has been increased to 15, including Los Angeles, said Eastin’s chief deputy Ruth McKenna.

Negotiations will last through January, and districts are expected to bring challenge contract proposals to their boards by April, McKenna said. The goal is to allow schools to begin making changes next fall.

Eastin’s proposal does not provide for statewide standardized tests for most grade levels--meaning there is no coordinated way to measure whether districts are meeting their goals.

McKenna said districts will be allowed to offer their own methods for measuring student achievement and Los Angeles Unified has already been working with UCLA to develop its own districtwide test.

Once the Los Angeles Board of Education formally approves the plan to make LEARN schools a challenge district, those campuses would be freed from many of the state rules their teachers and principals believe impede reform.

High on the wish list for LEARN schools are freeing up textbook money for computer software purchases, relaxing teaching credential requirements that limit schools’ ability to fill vacancies, and loosening requirements that dictate class size and when and how long children must attend school.

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At Foshay Learning Center in South-Central Los Angeles--formerly a junior high school, now a campus for kindergarten through 11th grade--Principal Howard Lappin has been stymied in his plan to let some elementary school teachers conduct classes for older children in subjects they know and love.

Unlike high school, “middle school is not so much subject-oriented as learning-oriented,” Lappin said. “I want to take some of these [elementary teachers] and use their skills.”

But under current state teacher credentialing rules, “I can only use high school teachers,” because elementary teachers are not allowed to instruct most middle school courses, he said.

And current school financing rules that base funding on actual daily attendance make it difficult for LEARN schools, which control their own budgets, to predict how much money they will receive each year. Eastin’s plan would allow average monthly enrollment to dictate funding, providing those schools with a more reliable stream of funds.

Already, many LEARN schools have bumped up against these kinds of rules in trying to implement reforms.

The president of Los Angeles’ teachers’ union, Helen Bernstein, recalled a battle with the state several years ago involving Woodlawn Elementary in Bell, a LEARN school that wanted its kindergarten to follow the four-day-a-week public preschool schedule. The fifth day would be used for parent education, to nurture the parent involvement fostered in the preschool.

But “there’s a [state] rule that kids have to be in school Monday through Friday,” Bernstein said. “We went up to the state board [of education] and they denied our waiver request. I was really infuriated.”

Ideas that have never gone beyond the realm of dreams also began to emerge on Thursday in conversations with educators.

At Roscoe, Bunyan said, she has long been interested in a Japanese education model that would allow them to stretch their per-student teacher allotment by allowing some classes--such as physical education and music--to grow very large, permitting others to shrink.

“We could have some really small classes where kids are learning basic skills . . . if necessary give them one on one,” she said, excitedly. “I’m not saying that would ever happen here, but we don’t really think outside the box in those areas. When we’re trapped by law I don’t beat my head against the steel doors I can’t get through.”

But the plan would not allow the schools freedom from some district rules that have proved at least as problematic.

For example, the controversial issue of how school principals are selected--which has erupted recently at two LEARN schools--illustrates the complexity of the autonomy debate: It would not be solved by inclusion in her proposal because it results from district, not state, rules.

At both Sun Valley Middle School and the Eastside’s Wilson High, panels of parents, teachers and staff members selected new principals to fill openings created by district transfers. In both cases, the school district rejected those choices because neither of the candidates--both already assistant principals--had taken a test required for inclusion on the district’s principal list.

“When they sold LEARN to us, they told us that eventually we would have local control, that we could make these decisions on our own,” said Henry Orona, a social studies teacher at Wilson. “It’s all a farce if they are not going to let us do this.”

Board President Mark Slavkin confirmed that becoming a challenge district would not directly affect those internal rules, but said the board recognizes that it needs to bend as well.

“We point our finger at the state and the state points its finger at us,” Slavkin said. “But everybody has a role to play. . . . We have our own challenge in changing policies and regulations to support LEARN.”