LAAMP Gets High Marks for Reforms

Educators seeking to reform schools across Los Angeles County issued their own glowing report card Thursday, saying the first year of a multimillion-dollar academic overhaul has helped involve parents, train teachers and engage students in learning.

The teachers and administrators spent the day evaluating reforms initiated at 13 school “families,” the first of 28 batches of campuses to receive grants from the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project. Funds have been provided by a $53-million donation by billionaire media magnate Walter H. Annenberg.

Subsequent grants were made to 15 other groups of schools. LAAMP has awarded $38 million, with the remainder of the money to be used for operating costs, evaluations and other expenses. The schools are required to match all grants with public or private funds.

Campuses have installed computers, opened parent centers and established teacher-training programs with the help of area universities over the last year, the first of the five-year project.

Although LAAMP officials said it was too soon to accurately measure results, the schools cited several indicators of success: improved attendance, lower dropout rates, fewer student suspensions, more students taking rigorous courses and increased parent participation.

“We’re trying to create a community of learners that extends beyond the traditional school doors,” said Constance Gibson, principal of Lemay Street Elementary School in Van Nuys and a member of the Birmingham “school family” in the San Fernando Valley.

The Birmingham cluster of 12 schools--serving Van Nuys and Reseda--used its nearly $300,000 to buy computer equipment for each campus and to establish “Saturday school” for students and parents alike, among other things.

Gibson said teachers sought to curb a troubling trend: Parents who were uninvolved in their children’s education because they were too busy working.

The schools decided to offer classes on Saturday mornings at a middle school. Now, 300 children and 80 adults show up every Saturday at 9 a.m.

The children study everything from math and science to art, dance and karate. Parents learn how to operate computers and take English classes, and they sign a pledge to volunteer with their schools one hour for each three-hour Saturday session they attend.

Meanwhile, counseling is offered on Saturdays for families with children in any of the 12 Birmingham schools and a caseworker is available to help locate medical services.

“Research shows that if parents are involved in schools, children get better grades,” Gibson said.

Some observers were impressed by such reforms but said they want more proof of academic success.

“I think it shows incredible progress for building families of schools,” said David Tokofsky, a member of the Los Angeles Board of Eduction who served as a panelist for the conference in Burbank. “While it is too early to say what’s the empirical proof that the system works, that has to be moving up the agenda of these [school] families quickly. You can be a happy family and still not go to college.”

Of the 13 initial school clusters, five are in the Los Angeles Unified School District--with three in the Valley, one on the Eastside and one in the San Pedro area.

*

The others include the Santa Monica-Malibu, Pasadena and Long Beach unified school districts. Officials from several of the districts said the LAAMP program has enabled them to build collaborative relationships among students, teachers, administrators, parents and others whose input is crucial to carrying out broad reforms.

Administrators in Pasadena district are using part of their $2.2-million grant for a summer academy in which veteran teachers model their methods for novice colleagues in hopes that both will learn from the experience. The academy also is being funded by the Ford Foundation and has been developed with Cal State Dominguez Hills.

“LAAMP has helped us focus, expand and improve our efforts,” said Kathy Lesley, the Pasadena district’s director of secondary instruction and its LAAMP coordinator.