LAAMP School Reform Project

Re “School Reform Mostly Disappointing,” Jan. 28: Results from the recent report made by the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project on its efforts to help improve schools in the L.A. area were mostly encouraging, not discouraging, as reported by your article. Just two of LAAMP’s accomplishments are: the first attempt in LAUSD to link together elementary, middle and high schools into school families; and groundbreaking work with the Cal State system--which produces 70% of the state’s teachers--to significantly improve the teacher-training curriculum. LAAMP also deserves a share of the credit for the significant improvements in test scores for reading, math and language at LEARN reform schools, which last year across the board outperformed schools that had not adopted reform efforts.

Can more be done? Certainly. But it is important for the record to show that at a grass-roots level reform is taking hold in LAUSD and that LAAMP is making an important contribution to these reform efforts.

MIKE ROOS, President, LEARN, Los Angeles

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A thousand participants at LAAMP’s second annual public reporting meeting came away excited about the work of the 28 LAAMP-funded school families that operate throughout L.A. County. The Times’ article focused mainly on LAUSD, in which only one-half of LAAMP-funded school families operate. In the case of LAUSD, the data show that the elementary schools of 13 of 14 school families showed improved student performance on standardized tests. Seven of 12 middle schools and 40% of the participating senior high schools showed improvement in student performance.

Educators openly exchanged their experiences in tackling school reform. For example, one school family in South-Central Los Angeles indicated that it needed help in getting more parents actively involved in the schools, despite the fact that 80% of the parents are fully engaged. Why would your reporter conclude that the school family’s effort to engage parents has been mostly disappointing?

School reform has begun to take hold in these 28 school families. The intensified use of student performance data has led many educators to an improved understanding of the needs of their students. Yet, school families know that they won’t have the full picture until they are able to track the progress of individual students over time, across schools. By focusing on literacy, school families have begun to produce higher test scores at the lower grades. At the same time, school families acknowledge the need to better integrate secondary schools into their efforts to improve student literacy.

The challenges facing today’s public schools are enormous, but the educators are responding. Now we need to get effective educational practices deep into our classrooms and into our students’ homes. School families that tackle the tough challenges head-on today are the ones that will hold the light down the road to public education’s improvement.

MARIA A. CASILLAS, President, RANDY ROSS, Vice President, LAAMP, Los Angeles