EDITORIAL ROMER'S LEGACY SUPERINTENDENT SHOULD LEAD, NOT RESIST, LAUSD REFORM.

IT should come as little surprise that after poring over a truckload of about 1,000 Los Angeles Unified School District audits dating back to 2001, City Controller Laura Chick found little of value, and an effort to conceal the truth.

This is the LAUSD, after all, and transparency has never been one of its virtues. Nor, for that matter, has accountability. For proof, just look at Superintendent Roy Romer's response to Chick's investigation. Rather than accept the criticism and demand changes, Romer did what LAUSD officials have done for decades: Deny, defend and deflect. He also refused Chick's offer to audit the district herself.

"We're not going to spend our dollars for Laura Chick to do an additional audit," Romer said. "We are the most audited entity in town."

That might be true, but clearly the district's attempt at self-policing isn't working.

Not that that takes away from the great successes Romer has enjoyed during his tenure. As superintendent, Romer has raised and spent billions to create hundreds of desperately needed new schools, and test scores have improved steadily albeit modestly under his watch. But there is one gaping hole in the Romer legacy, which, in light of his recently announced retirement, will soon come to an end: An inability to rein in the bloated and ineffective bureaucracy.

Romer has rightly earned the title of master builder of public schools. But he's muffed his chance to have become the master reformer of public schools, too.

That much is obvious in the mountains of audits that Chick has deemed worthless all that scrutiny and study did little to make the district more responsive, more efficient, more student-centered. The bureaucrats, the unions, the lifers, the lemons and the obstructors still call the shots.

Romer still has time to become the champion of total reform. But to do that, he must give up on deny, defend and deflect.

Chick and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are working hard to spearhead a reform movement, along with many others all over town. Romer should join them, rather than fight them, and make saving the LAUSD his lasting legacy.