EDITORIAL AUDITING THE LAUSD CHICK'S INVESTIGATION CAN HELP DETERMINE DISTRICT'S FUTURE.

AFTER some foot-dragging, the Los Angeles Unified School District has complied with a public records request from City Controller Laura Chick. For better or worse, Chick now has every audit, report and study analyzing the district since the 2000-01 academic year.

That's 782 in total. It took 10 big boxes - and a truck - to move the documents from LAUSD headquarters to Chick's City Hall office.

But if the enormity of all this analysis measured up against the rate of reform at the LAUSD tells us anything, it's that audits don't do much. They can assess problems, not fix them.

The truth is that organizations don't change unless the people running them have the heart to do so. No matter how closely Chick pores over all the old audits - or even if she gets her wish to do an audit herself - it won't do much to make the LAUSD more efficient or effective.

For that, bigger, comprehensive reforms are needed, whether it's creating a lot more charter schools, or Antonio Villaraigosa's vision of mayoral control, or a breakup of the district into smaller, more manageable pieces.

The purpose of Chick's investigation, then, is not so much to direct the LAUSD, but to educate the people of L.A. Her analysis can tell us just what's going on at the district: What are the not-so-obvious successes and failures, and what steps have officials taken to improve things?

With that information in hand, the public will be best equipped to decide what changes will be needed to create a responsive, high-achieving school district worthy of this great city. L.A. residents are paying for the nation's most modern school facilities, and they deserve the results to match in the classroom.