A Nation at Risk - Education

L.A. Unified bests reform groups in most cases, data show
Struggling schools under district control see test scores rise more than most operated by the mayor, a charter organization and others, a Times analysis finds.

Graduates celebrate at Locke High School. The charter school saw lower… (Arkasha Stevenson / Los Angeles Times)
August 18, 2011|By Howard Blume and Sandra PoindexterLos Angeles Times
In a surprising challenge to four school reform efforts run by outside organizations, the Los Angeles school district has not only held its own in improving math and English test scores, but in most cases outpaced the others, according to a Times analysis of the city's lowest-performing schools.

The district's showing was even more surprising given that its schools didn't benefit from outside funding and other extra resources brought in by reform groups for their schools.


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"The results are eye-opening, that conventional schools display stronger results," said Bruce Fuller, a UC Berkeley education professor.

One of the most striking comparisons was with a group of schools under the control of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The mayor's schools — elementary, middle and high schools — all improved less than the district's by some key measures.

The mayor had repeatedly derided the L.A. Unified School District as ineffectual when he unsuccessfully tried to take over the whole system nearly six years ago.

New test scores released Monday showed that the percentage of students in low-performing district-run high schools working at a "proficient" level in math increased 116% since 2008. That compared with a rise of 57% at two high schools under Villaraigosa's purview. The figures were more nuanced in other categories.

Villaraigosa expressed surprise at the results but also complimented the district's success. While his schools "are improving as well, I want them to be improving at a more accelerated rate," he said. "We're committed to the long haul."

He added: "We've decided to go to some of these similar [district] schools that are outpacing some of our schools and look at what they're doing."

The Times analysis looked at district schools whose test scores ranked in the bottom 20% of the state in 2008. Those schools are, in many ways, the ultimate litmus test for local school improvement. They enroll neighborhood students whose families haven't left to take advantage of a growing number of alternatives, including independently operated charter schools and the district's own popular magnet program.

The district scores were then compared with those of schools that have been part of four highly touted reform efforts aimed at boosting achievement at the lowest-performing schools.

All of these groups had the goal of breaking the long-standing pattern of academic failure by bringing in outside expertise, new resources and new leadership to end what critics view as the stultifying grip of district bureaucrats and entrenched faculties.

Three years later, the scores at many of these schools remain poor — often extremely so.

Because so many students started out at such a low level, many schools in the analysis showed large improvements in proficiency rates, despite overall low scores, most notably Locke High School. There, the percentage of students with proficient math scores more than tripled, even as enrollment grew.