A green light for Green Dot

IT CANNOT BE SAID that Los Angeles school officials are ignoring Jefferson High School. Its campus is less crowded, its curriculum is more focused and its students are in new uniforms. What officials don’t have is the faith of frustrated parents and a recipe for more fundamental change. That’s why the school board should allow Steve Barr, the founder of Green Dot charter schools, a chance to persuade parents and teachers to let his organization take over Jefferson.

The Green Dot schools are physically safe. All of their students take college-prep classes, and most graduate. Their teachers are better paid and free to make decisions that affect their classrooms. After years of chronic underperformance, Jefferson badly needs a dose of what Green Dot has to offer.

The district was slow to respond to the problems brewing at Jefferson, which erupted in racial violence in April, with scattered skirmishes for weeks afterward. Its dropout rate is high, its test scores low. Even with the recent improvements, many parents are fed up. They fear that the nascent reforms at Jefferson are cosmetic and will fade once another school becomes the poster campus of the month.

Green Dot gives parents and teachers more decision-making power over curriculum and other aspects of school life. Teachers are free to draw up their own curriculum and choose textbooks, as long as they can show their classes meet University of California standards for high school courses. Parents are required to participate. Schools stay open later to help working parents.

At the same time, Barr’s schools operate free of the encumbrances of the public school teacher’s contract. Green Dot teachers are unionized, but work rules are designed around what succeeds for students. Teachers can be fired with cause; firing a teacher is close to impossible in the public schools. Green Dot teachers also are paid about 10% more; the money comes from lower administrative costs and the absence of the budget-crushing lifetime benefits that L.A. schools give their teachers.

We hope Jefferson’s teachers will see that losing stultifying contract provisions is a fair trade for being treated as creative, competent professionals. A majority will have to agree to convert the school to a charter for it to have a chance. Barr should have an easier time with his other project -- getting nearly all the parents to sign on. The teachers union is openly hostile; the district wants Barr to go more slowly.

We agree with Barr’s supporters that the time for going slow passed long ago. The district should help this happen, not put the brakes on.