Joining a national trend among urban school districts, the Los Angeles board of education last week approved a plan to scale down all the sprawling district鈥檚 secondary schools into smaller units of 350 to 500 students apiece.
The policy sets up a framework for how the nation鈥檚 second-largest school district will start new schools from scratch and break down existing large ones. Two years in the works, the policy approved Oct. 5 is being billed as a milestone on a journey expected to take a decade or more.
鈥淚t set in motion a process of change,鈥� said Liliam Leis-Castillo, who is heading the small-schools effort as the executive assistant to Superintendent Roy Romer.
The policy describes in broad strokes a plan to expand the system鈥檚 limited foray into small schools and learning communities into a districtwide undertaking. Many of the details, in areas ranging from personnel to budgeting, are not spelled out.
District officials see the policy as a compromise between giving substantial autonomy to what they are calling 鈥渟mall school learning communities鈥� and maintaining centralized control. 鈥淲e want to make sure that we鈥檙e flexible enough but that there鈥檚 accountability involved,鈥� Ms. Leis-Castillo said.
How the leadership of the 778,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District addresses that challenge may be key to the future of an initiative that many say could prove unusually far-reaching in its impact.
鈥淚f L.A. Unified is able to do this 鈥� to make this a reform effort for every single high school, that would be phenomenal,鈥� said Linda B. Guthrie, the secondary vice president for United Teachers Los Angeles. At the same time, she said, the 48,000-member union is concerned about such issues as how teachers will be placed and how the learning communities鈥� budgets will be set.
鈥淲e think there has to be more guidance from the central office,鈥� she added.
Aiming High
Goals of the plan are to improve the academic achievement of all secondary students, increase the graduation rate, and 鈥減repare all students for a wide range of postsecondary opportunities.鈥�
District officials cite a four-year graduation rate of 68 percent, but outside estimates have pegged the percentage as far lower. A study issued last February by Christopher B. Swanson, a dropout expert at the Washington-based Urban Institute, for example, calculated the rate at 46 percent.
Under the new policy, learning communities are each to have a theme or focus. Some are to be in new facilities, although typically not as stand-alones, while others are to be housed in existing schools in 鈥渋dentifiable, contiguous space.鈥�
To reduce anonymity, the policy calls for lowering the number of students that teachers work with and setting up advisory groups to foster student-teacher relationships. The learning communities must 鈥渋mplement a rigorous, standards-based curriculum鈥� under the policy, but will be able to use alternatives to districtwide standardized tests if they 鈥渁ssure comparable performance.鈥�
Building on grants the district has already received from the federal government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the district will be seeking outside funding to help support a restructuring effort that Ms. Leis-Castillo estimated would cost about $1 million per school. She said the district has about 80 middle schools and 50 high schools, some of them serving more than 5,000 students.
Marie Groark, a spokeswoman for the Gates Foundation, called the district鈥檚 move 鈥渁 good first step鈥� toward carrying out the kind of sweeping high school improvements the Seattle-based philanthropy is supporting in districts around the country. (鈥淢ajor Gates Foundation Grants To Support Small High Schools,鈥� June 16, 2004.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a good vision statement,鈥� she said, 鈥渁nd the details need to be worked out.鈥�
