BREWER SAYS NO ROOM FOR FAILURE L.A. SCHOOLS CHIEF SETS STRICT GUIDELINES.

Byline: NAUSH BOGHOSSIAN

Staff Writer

Seeking to elevate performance at Los Angeles Unified schools, Superintendent David Brewer III said Friday that he will hold administrators accountable for the first time with new evaluations, dropout and test-score benchmarks, and districtwide reviews.

In his first official back-to-school address to thousands of administrators, Brewer vowed a cultural revolution this year in the 708,000-student district.

"Failure will no longer be an option at LAUSD," he told nearly 2,000 principals, assistant principals and LAUSD administrators gathered at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Nearly 10 months after he took the helm of the nation's second-largest school district, Brewer said new evaluation forms for administrators will take into account state testing performance, absentee rates and the number of ninth-graders moving to the 10th grade.

And Brewer told teachers and administrators that despite the new benchmarks -- and the difficulties ahead -- they need to persevere.

"When you feel like you want to give up, you look at a young child ... to give yourself inspiration. You go out and look at some of these young people who are struggling every day walking through gang gantlets to get to school to get an education and then you say to yourself, 'I will never give up,'" Brewer said.

"When I have a bad day, I go visit a school because I have to be reminded viscerally what I'm all about, why I left my comfort zone to come here."

In a district where accountability has never been institutionalized, Brewer said directors will visit schools every month to monitor progress.

The new evaluation forms, which have the support of the administrators union, will be formally introduced next year, Brewer said, but administrators will be targeted on the standards this year.

"I am going to come see you, the local district superintendents are going to come see you, the directors are going to come see you and when we come see you, we're going to have a scorecard," Brewer said.

In his speech, Brewer eschewed notes and the lectern and paced confidently on stage like a motivational speaker as his "8 Steps to Change" reform plan was projected on two jumbo-size screens.

Sense of urgency

In a marked departure from predecessor Roy Romer's style -- which usually included cardboard charts of student test scores -- Brewer forcefully prodded school leaders to establish a sense of urgency.

He exhorted them to build their own teams, create a vision, communicate the vision, empower others to act, produce quick wins, not let up or give up, and create a new culture.

And he emphasized that each administrator will undergo professional development courses that will guide reform along with data, innovation, engaging parents and the community and ensuring student safety.

The goal, he said, is to create an environment that nurtures teachers such as Jaime Escalante, who defied expectations and taught advanced math classes to poor students at Garfield High School.

Actor Edward James Olmos was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Escalante's challenges and triumphs in the 1988 film "Stand and Deliver."

But Escalante resigned in 1991 -- after 17 years at Garfield -- to take a teaching post in the Sacramento City Unified School District.

"All I know is that we have not recovered from that at Garfield. ... In this culture, we kill our savants. We have to stop that. That is a part of the cultural revolution that is going to happen under David Brewer," he said.

"We will not kill our savants. We will model them and benchmark what they're doing and replicate what they're doing."

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell urged principals to continue to challenge students to higher achievement and to feel connected to their schools.

"Our jobs have become more difficult because this is a new economy," he said. "It's a hyper-competitive global economy and it's an economy that requires of all of us to have higher-level thinking skills and we need to impart that on our students."

Julie Korenstein, who has served on the school board for 20 years and has heard numerous back-to-school addresses, complimented Brewer's style of speech but questioned its content.

She said professional development courses are costly and may not be necessary for all administrators.

"I don't know whether or not what he is suggesting or recommending, where the teeth is in it yet," she said. "These are a lot of hardworking administrators who have worked at their schools for a long, long time ... I'm not sure if we need wholesale retraining of every administrator in the district."

Focus on students

LAUSD spokeswoman Binti Harvey said Brewer will use existing funds to pay for the professional development, along with some corporate funding.

For Jefferson High Assistant Principal Jose Avila, the message was clear: Focus on students and don't deviate no matter how difficult it gets.

"It was inspiring. I think it's definitely the move that we need to make and the direction we need to take," Avila said.

"We have to focus on the child and every time that something becomes difficult, take a look at who our clients are -- our children -- and they're the ones we're here for.

"They're our customers and they're the ones we have to serve."

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