EDITORIAL YOUNG FOR SCHOOL BOARD REFORMER IS LAUSD'S BEST HOPE FOR PROGRESS.

THE school reforms that have raised student test scores, sparked a massive school construction program and given hope to parents all across Los Angeles are in jeopardy in the March 4 school board election.

Progress is being made under the leadership of school board President Caprice Young, and her re-election is critical to building on that progress in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

More than anyone else, the Daily News has exposed the LAUSD's problems, sharply criticized its shortcomings in editorials and held the board, Superintendent Roy Romer and the other 40,000 people involved in the district accountable for failure.

Yet we recognize that positive changes are occurring, and Caprice Young has played a leading role in making them happen.

The choice on March 4 is clear: A proven leader getting results or a return to the bad old days when union representatives ran LAUSD into the ground.

United Teachers Los Angeles, which controlled a majority of the school board seats for years while student achievement plummeted and schools deteriorated, has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into regaining power by defeating Young.

Voters in District 3 in the South and West San Fernando Valley should send the union a clear message that the money it has spent on sleazy TV commercials and mailers has been wasted.

If you want the schools run the way they were back in the 1980s and 1990s, vote for the challenger, Jon Lauritzen, a retired teacher who will try to turn the clock back on school reform.

That would be a horrible mistake.

Young was elected in 1999 when funds from the Coalition for Kids, created by former Mayor Richard Riordan and Eli Broad, broke the union stranglehold over the LAUSD.

She has aggressively demanded accountability from administrators and come to understand what we have believed all along: The LAUSD is simply too big ever to be run well.

It may surprise some that we place such importance on Young's re- election given our past criticisms. But the plain fact is we are impatient for change, unwilling to accept another generation of children denied a quality education. Young shares this impatience and has provided strong and effective leadership.

Failure to continue reforming the LAUSD would be intolerable.

Lauritzen, a twice-failed Assembly candidate, has mounted a serious challenge because the union has taken over funding and running his campaign. The union has made a big deal out of the inadequate toilet facilities in some schools, but even Lauritzen acknowledges that school facilities have improved sharply in the last four years.

He offers no concrete proposals for progress.

Since the Coalition for Kids successfully bankrolled Young and a reform slate of candidates, test scores among elementary-school grades have gone up sharply. A massive school-construction project in under way to end year-round schedules, eliminate overcrowding and modernize older schools.

Today, progress is visible in the LAUSD, even if it's not as fast as students, parents, other concerned Angelenos and this newspaper would like.

Yet that progress is in jeopardy if the unions regain control of the district, which they hope to achieve by ousting Young.

Young has staked her campaign on a bold proposal for splitting up the LAUSD into as many as 20 districts that would bring community involvement back to the schools. That the issue comes up now is politics, of course. Still, her position represents a commitment to start the process of breakup and a recognition that much more dramatic changes are needed.

Young remains dependent on the Coalition for Kids for funding, and while she often carries its point of view, she also has showed an independent streak.

When the coalition pulled its support from board member David Tokofsky because he has blown the whistle on district incompetence and crooked deals, Young still went ahead and endorsed him. Voters in Eagle Rock and the Eastside could do no better than to support Tokofsky as well, and we encourage his re-election.

Young and Tokofsky are two of the school board's brightest lights and the LAUSD's best hopes for revitalization.

The Daily News strongly recommends that Valley voters re-elect Young. She is our best hope of getting the kind of schools we deserve and our children so desperately need.