New Page for School Reformers

Change is in the air for Los Angeles public schools, and reform groups are shifting gears from attack mode to gaining a unified voice, the better to work with the new school board to fix public education. It’s a good time for five major school reform organizations--LEARN, LAAMP, LAEP, the Committee for Effective School Governance and the Los Angeles Business Assn.--to increase their clout through coordinated focus.

Why now? First, there’s a new school board, one that seems finally capable of governing itself. Most school board members are open to new ideas and willing to work collegially and take on tough decisions. Second, there’s a pending change of leadership at LEARN, with the announcement of the departure of Mike Roos, its CEO. Both new situations provide an opportunity for the educational reform groups to think about how they can function more effectively toward their common goals. They should speak with a clear, single voice on two educational imperatives: improving early literacy and teacher and administrator performance. While they continue their separate initiatives, the district should know that all of the reform groups are focusing like a laser on the top two priorities.

Here’s what the groups do now: LAEP, the Los Angeles Educational Partnership, specializes in teacher assistance and community outreach for education. LAAMP, the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project, focuses on technical assistance for clusters of schools and teacher education, while the business association and the committee have more traditional good-government roots.

LEARN, the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now, is the best known of the groups. It encourages local decision-making by the principal, teachers and parents. About half of Los Angeles schools have adopted the LEARN program.

LEARN--founded in 1991 by then-Arco President Robert E. Wycoff, former Lockheed Chairman Roy A. Anderson, Richard Riordan before he became mayor and the late Helen Bernstein of the teachers union--ushered in a new attitude on school reform. More than business leaders were involved. LEARN brought together hundreds of diverse groups, with all major racial, ethnic and special-interest groups represented, including business, civic activists, labor, education, parents and community organizations. That diverse support for school reform still flourishes.

Roos, a former assemblyman, used the political skills he honed in Sacramento to make inroads in a school district hostile to outsiders and to rapid change. During his tenure, LEARN did not meet all of its goals--some parents still can’t explain what a LEARN school is--but the reform plan has made some difference for students where it counts, on the Stanford 9 test scores. A Times analysis of L.A. school district test scores in 1997 and 1998 showed that LEARN schools accounted for most of the admittedly modest improvement made in the district and had progress second only to charter schools, which represent far fewer campuses.

LEARN and the other educational reform groups will continue. It’s a great opportunity to improve their collective clout with a school board that finally seems ready to enact reforms.