72 L.A. County Schools Chosen for Reform Plan : Education: Campuses will get infusion of funds, with a mandate to improve or face drastic measures.

Seventy-two Los Angeles County schools will be among 430 California campuses taking their first brave steps toward accountability this year.

The campuses were notified Wednesday that their applications had been accepted to become the first bellwether group in the state’s new $96-million school intervention program. Aimed at campuses where standardized test scores have languished in the bottom half of the state standings for two years running, the program is a crucial part of Gov. Gray Davis’ plan to improve public education.

The campuses, from elementary to high school, each stand to receive an infusion of up to several hundred thousand dollars over several years. In return, they face penalties including the reassignment of staff and even closure if they don’t start delivering the scholastic goods.

“The people who stepped up to the plate are really going to be under the microscope a bit,” said Pat McCabe, an administrator in the state education department’s policy and evaluation office.

“They’ll be given quite a lot of money and the opportunity to reform their schools--enacting reforms that aren’t systemwide but specific to their school,” McCabe said. “Obviously . . . there’s a hammer at the other end. Given the opportunity and the money to make changes, if [improvements] do not occur, these schools will be the first on the block for local intervention in 2001.”

Statewide, 3,144 schools were eligible for the program, and almost half of those applied. Twenty-five schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District and five in Orange County were among those selected.

The 77 schools in more advanced stages of restructuring will get $200 a pupil or $50,000, whichever is greater, to be spent over three years and matched by local districts.

The other 353 will get a $50,000 planning award--used to hire an outside evaluator to point out school weaknesses and propose solutions. Once an improvement plan--including goals of raising test scores at least 5% a year--is submitted, the state will give the schools about $168 a student in the second year to achieve it. Local districts must match that contribution.

Meeting goals can bring more grants. Consistently missing them could result in a campus being converted to a charter school, the yanking of local control or the dismissal of a principal.