The news that black and Latino students...

The news that black and Latino students in Los Angeles Unified schools drop out at rates far higher than their white and Asian counterparts ought to translate into support for school board member Mike Lansing’s ambitious plan to immediately remake 10 of the district’s worst high and middle schools.

Lansing’s proposal would give those inner-city schools handpicked teaching and administrative staffs, control over campus budgets and more funding for things like security, smaller classes, teacher bonuses and training, and academic intervention for struggling students.

During months of discussion and deliberation, board members and Supt. Roy Romer have expressed support for Lansing’s concepts, then have tried to talk the measure to death. They worry about stepping on the toes of the teachers union and hastily imposing new programs on schools that have already been whipsawed by years of unsuccessful mandated reforms. Meanwhile, thousands of discouraged students disappear from those campuses each year.

Lansing’s plan is not perfect, but it attempts to address the single biggest obstacle to improving inner-city schools: the difficulty of attracting and retaining qualified, committed teachers. It also provides schools with additional funding to adapt programs to meet their students’ interests and needs, such as replacing outmoded vocational programs with more challenging career training courses and offering intensive literacy programs for struggling readers. More important, it forces district leaders to recognize that too many schools are what researchers call “dropout factories” -- campuses where only one-third of the students make it to graduation from ninth grade and only one in 50 is proficient in reading and math.

For years, this district -- like many across the country -- has used statistical sleight of hand to imply that almost all kids graduate. The Harvard University study released Wednesday pulls the curtain back to reveal a dismal failure. School district leaders must stop taking a glass-half-full approach, focusing on improvements in elementary schools and suggesting that the way to improve high schools is to wait until smarter kids get older. Students about to face the hard realities of life without an education deserve much better, and they need it now.