A Giant Step for LEARN Schools : Select L.A. campuses may be included in Supt. Eastin’s innovative reform program

The LEARN schools of Los Angeles once again are figuring in intriguing new developments in public education. Delaine Eastin, the state superintendent of public instruction, is negotiating with the Los Angeles Unified School District to allow LEARN schools to form a “challenge district”--a group of schools that will be permitted to escape much red tape and many bureaucratic rules in exchange for a commitment to improve student achievement and campus safety.

LEARN is expected to win approval for Los Angeles participation in Eastin’s bold new reform. This is good news indeed for educators, parents and students.

The superintendent is using a little-known authority that she says allows her to waive nearly any provision of the voluminous state education code “to improve general education.” So far, there have been no legal challenges to her efforts to relieve educators from some tedious and time-consuming regulatory tasks, such as closely monitoring attendance in order to get state funding.

In addition to promising to boost student achievement, the challenge districts must toughen high school graduation requirements, reduce the dropout rate, close campuses and make other improvements.

Critical to the approach is a method to measure gains or losses in student achievement. The state’s controversial California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) tests were scrapped last year after Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed funding for the exams. Now, however, a bill that would create a new statewide pupil assessment test is on the governor’s desk. Wilson should sign this legislation, which would provide a tool vitally needed to chart the progress of California’s students.

Initially, only a fraction of the state’s public school enrollment will participate in Eastin’s venture. The state official has selected nine school districts, all of which already were solidly on reform paths. Forty-seven other districts have indicated they too would like to be included. To be accepted, districts must sign a contract. The details of that and other parts of the process are expected to be completed by next spring.

What about the schoolchildren who are left out of the program? Eastin says that she is not damning them to a second-rate education, that her goal is to eventually include all schools. That’s similar to what the LAUSD tells parents whose children do not attend LEARN schools. The district hopes to enroll all schools in LEARN before the turn of the century.

LEARN schools are challenging principals, teachers, parents and students to do better. Allowing those campuses to operate under Eastin’s more liberal rules should give them greater freedom to succeed.