EDITORIAL : AHEAD OF THE CURVE; PACOIMA CHARTER SCHOOL WISELY INSTITUTES PROGRAMS TO BRING STUDENTS UP TO PAR BEFORE SOCIAL PROMOTION BAN BEGINS.

ONCE again, the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima leads the pack in educating elementary school children.

Under a program devised by Principal Yvonne Chan and her colleagues, the school is making a pre-emptive strike on the state's ban on social promotion, the widely used practice of blindly advancing a youngster from one grade to the next despite the child's inability to grasp what he or she has been taught.

Though the law is set to go into effect with the 1999-2000 school year, Chan doesn't want to waste another minute.

``Why let them fail for six more months?'' she says.

Beginning in January, Vaughn students who have tested poorly on standardized tests or received low marks on their first report card this year will attend a weeklong literacy program to improve their reading comprehension and vocabulary skills.

The premise, and it's so brilliant because it's so simple, is to catch students before they slip too far behind. Starting midway through the year, instead of waiting for final marks, is the key component in the program.

Students will receive intense instructions on the basics of learning and then will have half a school year to use them to raise their grades. The alternative is to do nothing, allowing the child to struggle through the rest of the year and then sending the student to summer school to catch up.

Chan calls this a ``proactive plan'' in which students who need assistance are identified early and placed in one of three hands-on learning programs.

Vaughn's students are fortunate to be attending a charter school because it has the ability to tailor programs to the youngsters' needs.

Other students in the Los Angeles Unified School District face an unknown future. The district has yet to devise a plan to comply with the law's ban on social promotion, and nearly 700,000 students will likely be told to sink or swim when summer school rolls around.

The district should follow Chan's lead and quickly implement a plan that affords its failing students the greatest opportunity to learn without having to deal with the stigma of being left back.