What Happened to LEARN?

Here’s a pop quiz for all you parents, teachers and principals toiling on LEARN councils at nearly 400 schools throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District:

Did the district abandon LEARN (Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now) as a reform effort last year when it created 11 subdistricts? If you answered no, it’s no wonder. Adopted in 1993 with great fanfare, LEARN was discarded by the district without so much as a whimper.

Although some trappings remain, the school board and district superintendent no longer view the central values of LEARN as guiding policy at LAUSD. Quietly, the office of school reform, where LEARN efforts were coordinated, where money for staff training was allocated, where parent satisfaction surveys were conducted, was closed. And with little or no dialogue, let alone debate, the district has seemingly walked away from the school-based management model in which parents, teachers and principals had decision-making authority over matters like budget, personnel and curriculum.

“Local control” now comes in the form of 11 subdistricts created by the Board of Education last April at the same time the LEARN office was eliminated. Each subdistrict has a superintendent and a 13-member Parent Community Advisory Council. Although these advisory committee members are no doubt dedicated, the process by which they were selected remains a mystery, even to many district insiders.

When and where they meet is not widely advertised. Broad community participation is hardly promoted. Curriculum is increasingly standardized throughout the district.

I am a member of the LEARN council at my daughter’s elementary school in Encino. One can imagine my surprise to find that the district considers the school-based management model passe. I’d still be in the dark about it had I not recently learned that a teacher was assigned to our school without the principal’s approval, as is (or was) the policy at LEARN schools. When our principal called the district’s personnel office downtown to remind them of the hiring authority vested in LEARN school principals, she was told, in essence, that it was a new day. LEARN was history.

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When LEARN was adopted unanimously by the Board of Education eight years ago, it was trumpeted as the future of LAUSD and the keystone to school reform. More importantly, it helped LAUSD officials beat back a voucher initiative and efforts to break up the sprawling district. LEARN was the “vision” of a diverse alliance of more than 600 community representatives, including parents, religious, business and labor leaders and educators from all parts of the district.

The idea was to strip away decision-making and budget authority from downtown bureaucrats and place it in the hands of those in the trenches of neighborhood schools--parents, teachers and the principals. The result was a detailed 25-page plan to “reclaim public education” that set out goals and methods of accountability for LEARN schools.

In the plan’s preamble, the alliance boldly demanded a “substantial and immediate” restructuring of the way our children were taught and our schools governed. In September 1993, LEARN was initiated at 35 schools, including 17 in the San Fernando Valley. Staunch LAUSD critics decried LEARN as the latest in a cavalcade of efforts designed to placate the public and avoid true reform like breakup or vouchers. Nevertheless, the LEARN movement took hold and spread.

By April 2000, the number of LEARN schools had swelled to 377. Despite standardized test scores that indicated LEARN schools were slowly improving, the good news was overshadowed by dismal scores districtwide. As parents, politicians, business and community leaders grew impatient with the pace of school improvements, LAUSD Supt. Ruben Zacarias was dumped and replaced on an interim basis by Ramon C. Cortines.

A whirlwind of a man, Cortines sold his subdistrict plan to a willing Board of Education, with its majority of newly elected members eager to fulfill a campaign pledge of sweeping reform. Subdistricts were in, Cortines was gone and LEARN was out.

Some will argue that LEARN is still an integral part of LAUSD’s reform agenda and that its best practices have been passed on to all district schools. But, as one LAUSD official recently conceded, LEARN “has gone underground” and no one at the district really knows what to do about all the existing LEARN councils.

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Meanwhile, back at the schools, LEARN councils continue to meet, deciding how to best use small amounts of discretionary money, scheduling special events and tackling problems like paper shortages or traffic congestion during drop-off and pick-up hours. But the meat-and-potatoes issues of improving education are no longer within LEARN’s jurisdiction.

Still, I’m proud of the little ways my LEARN council colleagues and I have improved our school. And while the lights at the LEARN office have been turned off for good, it’s not too late for district leadership to recognize the great potential to improve our schools by empowering us who are closest to the students. For they are the reason the district exists.