L.A. Schools Improving, Panel Says

The state’s Little Hoover Commission acknowledged Friday that the Los Angeles school district has improved its performance in building and maintaining schools, but made other recommendations.

In a letter to school board President Caprice Young, the watchdog agency said the district’s inspector general should be made more independent and the citizen committee overseeing money from Proposition BB, the school construction bond, should be given more information and be provided more staff.

Young could not be reached for comment Friday. But Supt. Roy Romer said he was pleased with the positive comments and took no issue with any of the recommendations. “I view this as a report that is helpful, that gives some creative suggestions,” he said.

The executive director of the Little Hoover Commission, Jim Mayer, said the letter represents the commission’s final report on its Sept. 25 hearing in Los Angeles.

Mayer said the letter provides an encouraging status report, with the provision that state scrutiny will continue until the district takes the recommended steps. The commission, which called the district a “disturbingly dysfunctional organization” in a 1999 report, has been monitoring it ever since.

That report had recommended the appointment of a panel of community leaders to examine breaking up the district.

Commission Chairman Michael E. Alpert, who signed the letter, indicated that such extreme measures may no longer be needed. “The commission offers these suggestions . . . with the hope that if local oversight is fortified, state oversight--such as that provided by the Little Hoover Commission and the Bureau of State Audits--will not be necessary,” he said. “Until that happens, state oversight must continue.”