L.A. Unified Goals to Go to Board

Nearly a year after convening a panel of experts on accountability, Los Angeles school officials have distilled their recommendations into a set of principles to guide a new system that would make every district employee, from custodian to superintendent, responsible for student achievement.

From setting academic goals for each grade level at each school to shaking up the staffing at schools that repeatedly fail to meet their goals, the principles “provide the framework for a huge institutional change,” said Gordon Wohlers, assistant superintendent for policy research and development.

If they were put into action, there would be several tests used to track the progress of each student; teacher training would be geared to demonstrated school needs; principals would have greater authority in assigning teachers; compensation would be based on knowledge and skills, not just seniority; and parents would have more responsibilities.

District officials will present the principles to the Board of Education today. They have not said how they would be implemented, a process that one consultant called “an excruciatingly difficult proposition.”

Wohlers acknowledged that it would take years and be very costly. He said he hopes to gain board approval of the concepts as a foundation for the tough detail work to follow.

Board approval is not certain because employee groups may object to some proposals. At least three principles would require collective bargaining to change management practices, and one, strengthening the authority of principals, is likely to meet strong opposition from teachers.

“This is not going to be easy,” Wohlers said. “But everyone has said to us, ‘Don’t stop because it is hard. It’s the right thing to do.’ ”

The 13 principles were drawn from hundreds of pages of reports developed by a task force convened by Supt. Ruben Zacarias last spring.

Wohlers said the 18 consultants, who were paid a total of $94,000 for their work, reached remarkably consistent conclusions, particularly on the need for measurable goals, multiple achievement tests and an improved data system to get information quickly to employees, parents and the community.

“Multiple causes of poor student achievement suggest that isolated reform efforts will not achieve sustainable improvements,” said Craig A. Kaplan, president of the educational consulting firm IQ Co.

Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, advocated a complex index to measure each school’s success.

It would balance student test scores over time against other goals of public education such as preparing good citizens. The district would be required to track students’ work history, voting habits and library usage after graduation. The index also would take into consideration more subjective criteria such as student happiness and parent involvement.

Several consultants incorporated the seven accountability measures used last year to determine whether district administrators would get a raise, but found them inadequate. Those measures include the number of students enrolling in academic classes, teacher and student attendance, and improvements on the Stanford 9 test, which compares Los Angeles students against a nationwide sample.

Several consultants noted that most of those indicators measure factors thought to contribute to learning rather than what students actually learn.

“We are not arguing with the selection of these indicators,” said Gerald C. Hayward, co-director of Stanford University’s Policy Analysis for California Education. “However, over time, the emphasis should continuously shift to indicators with a greater emphasis on measuring what students know and are able to do.”

Most of the consultants said the district needs a battery of tests, including some that measure mastery of the district’s curriculum. These tests should be given at various times during the school year, with results available swiftly.

One of the huge and still unknown costs of the proposals would be overhauling the district’s information technology division, which Kaplan termed a “centralized data jail.”

All the consultants said there should be rewards, including financial ones, for success, and consequences for schools that fail. Those would progress from academic probation to reconstitution, in which all the school’s employees could be replaced.

But no consequences singling out individuals were recommended.

“The overriding theme of the task force was not punitive,” Wohlers said. “It was to get the institution pulling in the same direction focused on student achievement.”

The president of the teachers union criticized the principles as bland and obvious, but found few of them objectionable.

Day Higuchi, president of United Teachers-Los Angeles, said that the union would be willing to negotiate a new salary schedule giving training precedence over seniority.