Loyola Marymount Gets LEARN’s Archives

Loyola Marymount University has acquired the documents of a major local school-reform effort, the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now (LEARN), university officials announced.

The university’s Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles will use proceeds from two grants to catalog and preserve the LEARN documents for use by scholars, students and the public.

The center--which aims to preserve the historic and other important documents pertaining to political and social reform movements in Los Angeles--already houses the papers of Rebuild LA (formed in the wake of 1992 rioting after the first verdict in the Rodney G. King police beating case) and of several former legislators from the area. Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks have promised their papers as well.

LEARN was founded in 1991 by a group of civic and business leaders striving for systemwide improvement in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The papers acquired by the Loyola center cover the period from LEARN’s founding through 1996. More recent documents will be added after they are no longer needed by LEARN, which in February merged with a second school reform organization.

“LEARN is one of the most important educational efforts in recent memory, and creating a historical record is critical to having LEARN’s accomplishments available for study by future leaders and educators,” said Fernando Guerra, the center’s director.