Desperate for Change, but What Kind?

Don’t look now, but it’s that time again. Time to take another dip in the morass of competing interests and ever-higher hurdles that stand in the way of good schools.

The traditional school year is about to begin, a new set of standardized test scores has cemented California’s standing as a national model for mediocrity, and a nonprofit group is attempting to commandeer a South Los Angeles high school where 1% of the 3,815 students tested proficient at math.

You read correctly. Just 1% of the students at Jefferson High, scene of three racially motivated skirmishes in recent months, passed muster.

In case you missed the latest report card for California schools, students in Los Angeles and statewide are doing a little better overall, but fewer than half are proficient at math and English by the standards of the federal No Child Left Behind law. At the current rate of improvement, assuming it continues, the state will be up to snuff at about the same time the polar ice caps have melted.

(I know what some of you are doing. You’re running to your computers to send me e-mails that go something like this: “Why don’t you have the guts to admit the schools are overrun with illegal immigrants who can’t speak English?” As I’ve written before, parents ought to learn English and make sure their children do the same, or they’ll both be held back and stunt everyone else’s progress as well. Can we move on now?)

Steve Barr, the man behind Green Dot Public Schools, is the one with his eye on Jefferson High. Barr believes you can’t have successful high schools without shaking things up. At the five charter schools his group operates in the county, he’s taken a stand against centralized power, campuses the size of state prisons, disaffected teachers, uninvolved parents and shameful dropout rates.

“There is no other issue” but education, Barr says with only slight exaggeration, noting that the city doesn’t have much of a future without new generations who can read, add and subtract.

Barr’s formula includes schools of 500 students or less with high expectations and college prep curricula. He hires creative teachers and principals and then allows them to design courses instead of having to spend their time resisting orders from headquarters. He spends more money on teachers and less on administration. Schools stay open later to accommodate working parents, who are then obligated to get involved.

To be honest, the test scores aren’t all As and Bs -- or even Cs -- at Barr’s schools, despite the advantage of having students whose families cared enough to get them into the charters. But many of his scores are better than those at regular public schools with similar demographics.

For instance, at Animo Inglewood Charter High, 56% of ninth-graders are proficient in language arts, as opposed to 23% at Inglewood High. At Green Dot’s Animo Leadership High, though, 10th-grade math students do no better than at Jefferson, with a meager 1% proficiency rating. Anyone out there interested in a takeover?

There are those who wonder if Barr’s earned a shot at trying to turn around Jefferson.

“I think he’s grandstanding,” says United Teachers Los Angeles union boss A.J. Duffy, suggesting that Barr isn’t prepared to deal with the social realities that contribute to the school’s poor performance. Duffy thinks teachers get hoodwinked by Barr’s promised 10% pay hike, saying they’ll end up mopping classroom floors when there’s no money for support staff.

Of course, Duffy’s job is to shoot down anything that threatens to siphon teachers and power away from UTLA, and the problem with his union is that students have always come second to such concerns.

UCLA education professor Jeanne Oakes admires Barr’s ambition but is no fan of charters, and she says the research indicates it’s harder to do a successful takeover than to start one from scratch.

“My interest is in finding really good public policy that makes schools terrific for all kids,” Oakes said, doubting the widespread replicability of small successes.

But Oakes said that if LAUSD boss Roy Romer has a Steve Barr problem -- Barr is gathering signatures from Jefferson parents in hopes of winning support for a takeover -- Romer created the problem by his unwillingness to give schools a freer rein and by moving too slowly on in-house reform proposals.

She also wonders about the Broad factor. “There’s an elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about ... and that’s Eli Broad,” Oakes said. “If you follow the money, Steve Barr is backed by a whole lot of money from Eli, who’s obviously been very supportive of the mayor, so that’s a part of the story ... I would like to know more about.”

Look, I can only interview so many elephants at a time. I’ll have to get to Broad later to see if he’s plotting another takeover of the school district.

Romer, for his part, told me he’s got nothing against a charter here and there. But there’s already a plan to break Jefferson into several academies, he said, and while he’d be happy to have Barr run one or two of them, he’s definitely opposed to a hostile takeover.

“I’m open to the involvement of charters and other outside providers,” Romer said. “But I want them to share. I do not want them to come over and take the whole school away from the district.”

Barr says no to sharing. He doesn’t think he can grow flowers with the dark cloud of the district hanging overhead.

Romer reminded me that despite huge populations of low-income and non-English-speaking students, LAUSD has showed steady gains for four years, so the district is doing something right. With $14 billion on hand now to build new campuses and create a small-school program in the high schools, he said, the district is about to make great strides.

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s response? He all but said “yada yada.”

Although the mayor hasn’t followed through on campaign promises to begin grabbing more control of the school district, Villaraigosa recently scolded the parents of students who habitually play hooky. And when I read him Jefferson’s 1% proficiency rating, he lashed out at the lack of indignation and urgency at district headquarters.

“Those numbers are unbelievable and unacceptable,” he snarled. “Anybody who would try to defend that number ... is a big reason why we’re in this situation in the first place.”

Jefferson has a new principal now, but when Villaraigosa visited the campus earlier this year he was shocked by how poorly run the school was.

“That school was in chaos,” he said. “There was graffiti all over the place,” with students “roaming the hallways and nobody in charge.”

If parents and teachers want Green Dot to give it a try, Villaraigosa said, they’ve got his vote.

I can’t speak for all of them, but parent Tezra Jackson -- her son Desmond is a senior -- is ready for a change. Green Dot, purple dot, polka dot, come on in.

“I’ve only been in Los Angeles 2 1/2 years, and I don’t know the history of how long the district has been singing the same song,” Jackson said. “But I know a change needs to come, and this is my stand: These kids are drowning and they need a lifeline. Whoever throws them the line, I’m with it.”

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Reach the columnist at steve.lopez@latimes.com.