Back-to-(new)-school day

LIKE A PROUD YET overeager parent, Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Roy Romer celebrated the first day of school Tuesday by climbing aboard a bus and making a campus visit. Actually, Romer visited four schools, all of them new, in a well-deserved victory tour that marked an important milestone in the district’s history.

On Tuesday, the district inaugurated 13 new schools and sufficiently relieved overcrowding to allow nearly two dozen others to switch from the dreaded year-round schedule to a traditional school year. Five years ago, when the school board hired Romer, the idea of opening 13 new schools in a single day was unimaginable. The first day of the 2000 school year saw tens of thousands of students squeezing into swollen campuses or being bused across town.

But Romer brought in a team of experienced managers who have pushed through construction projects, using a combination of old-fashioned politics, aggressive negotiations and dogged oversight. Since 2000, when it embarked on its massive school construction program, the district has unveiled 29 new schools, 40 expansions, 17 early education centers and one renovation project. With 91 other projects under construction, the district plans to inaugurate eight more facilities by the end of this school year, in addition to the 24 (including the 13 on Tuesday) that have already opened in 2005.

From his first days on the job, Romer has put easing overcrowding and improving instruction at the top of his priority list. The two goals are inextricably linked. For nearly a generation, overcrowding has led to more busing, more year-round schedules and more prefabricated bungalows at the edge of campus.

None of these conditions is ideal for a proper learning environment. The new facilities certainly do not guarantee a rise in test scores, but it was foolhardy to think that results would ever meet expectations before the district -- and the voters -- supplied the necessary and adequate facilities.

More than just bricks and mortar, the new schools symbolize a renewed dedication to public education on the part of Angelenos. Romer still faces daunting challenges, of course. But the superintendent, who was accompanied on his tour Tuesday by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and several other officials, is right to be both excited and proud of the district’s construction record.