LAUSD FAILS ITS SPECIAL STUDENTS.

Byline: Naush Boghossian Staff Writer

For the second straight year, a federal court monitor has blasted lack of progress toward better special education in the Los Angeles Unified School District and warned that the district might not meet a June 2006 deadline for drastic improvement, according to a memo obtained Wednesday by the Daily News.

Calling the LAUSD's special-education performance in 2004-05 ``haphazard at best,'' independent monitor Carl Cohn wrote to Superintendent Roy Romer that the absence of accountability toward achieving the goals is ``inexcusable.''

Cohn issued a reminder that 18 negotiated provisions of the court consent decree call for outcomes that district officials expected to be achievable and to establish high performance standards. A key problem, Cohn said, is that LAUSD officials have been focusing on central-office activities with little emphasis on the school level, where the plan's success will be determined.

``Large-scale change at the local district and school level that translates into progress toward the outcomes does not appear to be occurring,'' Cohn wrote in the June 20 memo.

``Time is short. Based on my review of current outcome data, I have serious reservations about the ability of the district to achieve the outcomes in this final year.''

Cohn, who has the authority to make the provisions more stringent and order remedial actions, could not be reached for comment.

The attorney for Chandra Smith and other plaintiffs who won the consent decree nine years ago called for firing administrators standing in the way of compliance with the law.

``There need to be consequences for openly defying the law - a number of school site administrators that should be fired,'' said attorney Robert Myers. ``I think administrators need to know that, if they violate the civil rights of children with disabilities, they will lose their jobs.''

The monitor's memo comes seven months after district officials promised to make special-education improvements a priority in response to an earlier scathing report from Cohn. In that report, Cohn said the district's first year under the modified consent decree amounted to a ``lost year.''

The consent decree came in 1996 after a civil-rights lawsuit was filed three years earlier on behalf of Chandra Smith and others. The lawyer for Smith, then 17, said the LAUSD violated federal law by allowing her to fail 10th grade twice before conducting tests to determine that she had the academic skills of a second-grader.

Responding to Cohn's latest report, district officials conceded that they need to step up efforts to meet the federal requirements, but said the challenge is immense - so big they might not meet the deadline.

``We are looking carefully at the accountability of everybody down the line,'' Romer said. ``Whether we'll be able to meet those goals has yet to be determined. We know the challenges right in front of us.

``I'm going to do everything I can to make this district perform under this (decree).''

Modified in 2003, the consent decree now sets 18 specific goals for gauging the success of the district's special-education programs.

They include:

--Increasing the percentage of special-education students who score at proficiency levels labeled ``basic'' or higher on state English tests to 27.5 percent by the 2006 deadline.

--Raising the percentage scoring ``basic'' or higher in math to 30.2 percent by the deadline.

--Decreasing the percentage of special-education students suspended for six or more cumulative days from the current 8.6 percent to 2 percent in 2006.

Board President Marlene Canter hopes to announce at next week's board meeting the creation of a select committee on the consent decree that will focus on an action plan.

``Obviously, whatever they have been doing has not (produced) ... the results in order for us to have this consent decree lifted. Whatever we're doing is not enough,'' Canter said. ``I want to create some urgency around it. We need to be held accountable.''

If the LAUSD fails to meet all of the goals by the deadline, officials do not face specific sanctions, but federal oversight could be extended.

According to a midyear progress report released earlier this year, just 17.8 percent of special-education students scored ``basic'' or higher on the language-arts test, 10 percent below the 27.5 percent mandated for 2006.

The report also showed that only 16 percent of students' individual education plans are translated into the parents' native language within 30 days, compared with the mandated 85 percent. Also, only 71 percent of 3,661 initial student evaluations were completed within 50 days, while the target was 90 percent.

District officials will make it a priority to target students identified for special education who have moderate to severe disabilities, said Roger O'Leary-Archer director of the LAUSD's special-education policies, procedures and modified consent decree monitoring.

With a goal of 52 percent, the LAUSD currently has only 34.1 percent of those students in general-education classrooms with special-education support 40 percent or more of the instructional day.

Naush Boghossian, [phone]

naush.boghossian(at)dailynews.com