Still learning

THE LOS ANGELES SCHOOL BOARD has approved 100 charter schools, more than any district in the nation. It is an admirable record. Yet even with such extensive experience -- the first charter school in L.A. opened in 1993 -- it’s difficult for board members to know which questions to ask.

At a recent meeting, board member Julie Korenstein illustrated the predicament. In one case, an organization that started a new elementary school this year seeks to open two more, all with a strong focus on teaching through the arts. Crescendo Charter now educates 190 children, most of them African American and poor.

Korenstein worried about the current school’s lack of a track record. It’s too new to have scores on the state’s standardized tests, and because the idea behind charter schools is to raise achievement, Korenstein wondered whether the district should wait a year to know more.

It wasn’t clear whether the board even has that option. A school’s academic record is a legitimate issue, the district’s legal advisors said, but not its length of service. The question was left unresolved, but it deserves an answer. Crescendo appears to be well organized and to have dedicated teachers -- but in the end, as Korenstein correctly points out, it’s achievement that matters.

Yet when another application involved a set of schools with a strong achievement record, suddenly Korenstein was asking different questions. The View Park schools in the Crenshaw district -- an elementary, middle and high school, 97% of whose students are African American -- have Academic Performance Index scores many schools, even suburban ones, would envy. The schools teach to a high standard, provide extra tutoring and require parents to help out. All three rank highly when compared with schools with similar poverty levels and ethnicity.

With a waiting list of 5,000 students, the charter operator wants to open two middle and two high schools. Yet Korenstein veered off into nitpicking questions about why the schools had about half as many students who qualify for free lunches than the district average, and she lectured the applicants about how charter schools tend to lead to more segregation.

Such grandstanding misses the core issue: By any measure, View Park’s schools are succeeding. Its waiting list shows that parents are dissatisfied with their public schools and want this kind of environment for their children.

In the end, that’s more important than almost anything else.

Approval of charters, which receive public funding but are independently run and exempt from many of the rules that govern public schools, always involves a leap of faith. Some charters are models for excellence; others have floundered. Which just makes the board’s main job -- asking the right questions -- all the more difficult, and all the more important.