Prometheus 6

LAUSD stalls its 'transformation'

Supt. David L. Brewer has not done much to inspire confidence in his year at the top of the Los Angeles Unified School District, but one initiative that seemed to convey an appreciation for the district's urgent need to think differently was his plan to declare 44 secondary schools a "transformation district" and lavish them with resources. Appropriately, he chose the city's lowest-performing schools and touted his proposal as part of a larger vision for desperately needed improvement districtwide.

Politically, the proposal was L.A. Unified's answer to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's high-gloss Partnership for Los Angeles Schools and a check on the charter school behemoth, which is snapping up students right and left. Perhaps most important, Brewer's plan was offered as evidence that he and the district understood the demand for immediate and radical action and for an end to union blockades on reform.

That was last month. Now the superintendent acknowledges that he's hit obstacles -- notably, the teachers union -- and needs to rethink elements of the proposal. And so early optimism gives way to disappointment. If the past is prologue, the next chapter is stasis, and the story ends with the sacrifice of more children's futures.