State Schools Officials Greet New L.A. District Chief

One day after being named Los Angeles schools superintendent, Roy Romer hopped a morning plane for Sacramento, where he received a warm welcome from a state board that pledged its support in helping him turn the district around.

The former three-term Colorado governor appeared before the State Board of Education armed with a battered old brown briefcase, a cheery demeanor and a message delivered at times like a lecture.

An hour earlier, the man he will replace in July, interim Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, won unanimous approval from the board for renewal of funds to build new classrooms to reduce class sizes. This comes despite the district’s history of problems in fulfilling benchmarks needed to qualify for that money.

The work day began at 7 a.m. for the men, both of whom met with staff and then grabbed separate flights for the state capital.

Romer told the board that he had spent the last decade thinking about standards-based school reform and had grown eager to dig in and put his ideas to work.

“So I looked around the country and I said, ‘Now where is the easiest assignment, where is the simplest path, the one where there is no controversy, no uphill grades,’ ” Romer said as the audience chuckled. “And I found L.A. Unified and I tell you, I could not be happier.”

While the board appearance was intended mostly as a get-acquainted session, Romer used it to express opinions and ask members to help him turn the struggling district around.

Citing Massachusetts as a cautionary example, he urged members not to put accountability--including popular tools such as exit exams--ahead “of our capacity to deliver a good learning experience.”

“Massachusetts has been at accountability--exit exams, high standards--and has really put money on the table for about eight years,” Romer said. “But they have not made substantial progress. . . . And what it’s pointing to is that we can’t get to where we want to get by the ordinary practices.”

Instead, Romer said, the state ought to focus on the quality of instruction. That, he said, will take “the kind of professional development we’ve never committed to nor been willing to fund.”

Noting that 25% of L.A. Unified’s teachers are on emergency credentials, Romer called the issue particularly acute for Los Angeles: “When we get at the problem of how do you raise achievement levels, the quality of the instruction is critical.”

He also said the annual Stanford 9 test is not a sufficient yardstick to gauge students’ progress.

“You need to have something periodically during the course of the year, a diagnostic of where that youngster is, so you’ll know to what degree they’re behind, why they’re behind, so you can develop a plan to bring them back,” he said.

Perhaps his most passionate remarks came on the topic of school facilities. Declaring himself “in awe” of Staples Center and the other impressive buildings around Los Angeles, Romer said the comparative sorry state of city schools “doesn’t make sense.”

After state Supt. Delaine Eastin vowed to help Romer in any way possible, the new superintendent took her at her word, bluntly saying that Los Angeles had been shortchanged in the school construction process and that the state needs to get the district more classrooms as soon as possible.

“If anybody is really concerned about saving that district, we have to work together on that building problem,” he said. “Just business as usual isn’t going to get it done.”

After the board meeting, Romer hurried up the street to the Capitol. There he met for about 15 minutes with Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks). He also dropped in on Gov. Gray Davis, who had time to say hello but nothing more because of ongoing budget negotiations.

Warren reported from Sacramento; Times education writer Louis Sahagun in Los Angeles contributed to this story.