SECOND OPINIONS : Community Partnership Would Benefit Students : Young people going to school today have so many things working against them that their education depends on involvement of more than parents and teachers.

Based on the most comprehensive data available, both theoretical and classroom-based, a school where I taught eliminated remedial classes.

But that doesn’t mean we didn’t have students who needed remediation. Students with below grade-level skills often do not make a successful transition from junior high school, where everyone is promoted, to high school, where they have to earn credits to graduate. Failing a class results in a student’s falling behind and, frequently, dropping out.

In the 1994-95 school year, in the Teacher Researcher Program of UCLA’s Writing Project, I worked with a group of ninth-graders at Eagle Rock Junior/Senior High School whose reading and writing skills ranged from third- to seventh-grade level.

Since enrollment in our developmental reading / writing class was limited to 35, and since several times that number of at-risk youngsters had been identified, we eliminated students with poor attendance histories and excessive discipline problems. The students we worked with needed every opportunity to learn without distractions.

I had two driving questions: Why had these students fallen so far behind, and could a daily additional hour of language arts bring them alongside their more successful contemporaries?

On the first day of school, I was armed with theoretical approaches and high hopes. My mission was to save them all. I assumed the students were at an age, 13 to 15, where they understood the importance of education and would cooperate. I assumed they hadn’t learned because they had exerted little effort, and that I would motivate them. I also assumed I knew what I was doing and would provide the right assignment. I should have remembered my husband’s warning: “When you assume, you make an ass of you and me. “

Opening day began well enough; we focused on goals. One student wrote in his journal: “I hope to have a better semester by doing all my work and listening more.” Another wrote: “This year I want my parents to be more proud of me.” Thirty-five students knew why they were in “The Club,” a name selected for the course to protect their egos. I had visions of my group shining in all of their other classes because of their enhanced skills, the result of working with me for the year.

High-interest books, I thought, would turn them on to reading. Since they were studying the required literature in their English class, I was free to abandon the canon. I collected romances, mysteries, science fiction, sports and popular teen-age stories. Students made their own reading choices. They took their books home and some even read them.

It was a breakthrough when a 14-year-old rushed in exclaiming: “I finished it. I didn’t even watch television all night.” She waved her “Sweet Valley High” novel proudly. It was the first novel she’d ever read entirely. Sadly, more than a third of the class never experienced a similar thrill.

At year’s end I felt considerably more humble. Two 14-year-old girls dropped out of school. Although many of those remaining said they were doing better, that their grades had gone up and they felt more confident, I didn’t see much improvement. They had arrived in high school ill-prepared, thanks to an education system that believes in social promotions regardless of what a student has achieved. They saw far too much television and read too few books. They had little or no homework supervision. They faced crowded classes, making it inevitable that some would fall through the cracks. And they had developed coping devices that let them hide their deficiencies.

Can an extra hour of language arts help? Yes. But not enough to overcome an eight-year decline or a system that promotes students regardless of what they can do.

I’m convinced that if we are going to educate all youngsters, we have to make education a true partnership, involving parents, teachers, school districts, the community, and, at the center, students. No single entity, in spite of good intentions, can do it alone. All must be held accountable.