LAUSD REPORT ADMITS SHORTCOMINGS; SCHOOLS LACK BILINGUAL, SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS.

Byline: Terri Hardy Daily News Staff Writer

Many Los Angeles schools have too few trained bilingual and special-education teachers, and as a result do not meet federal and state laws, according to an LAUSD survey released Tuesday.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in state and federal grants are at stake if ultimately the Los Angeles Unified School District is found out of compliance with the laws and does not correct the problems.

Armed with the LAUSD's findings, a state audit team now will investigate 14 campuses - including Noble and Mayall elementary schools in the San Fernando Valley - that need further review because of poor test scores or problems with the district survey.

The district ``already knew'' about its lack of adequately trained teachers, so the results of the reviews were not surprising, said Margaret Jones, administrator for specially funded programs.

``Our schools did a very honest attempt to review their programs,'' she added. ``How great of them to be honest - they could have lied.''

Deep-rooted flaws

The lack of adequate teachers in those programs has been a longstanding problem, helping trigger state sanctions and two legally binding plans of correction.

These latest problems surfaced in a mandated self-review, in which 180 schools graded their compliance in a number of federally and state-financed programs, including special-education, and bilingual, adult and vocational programs, Jones said.

According to the self-reviews, a majority of the schools identified their chief problems in bilingual and special-education, especially in relation to a lack of trained teachers, Jones said.

So understaffed were schools that it took 30 campuses more than 90 days to assess the abilities of new, non-English speaking students and put them in proper classrooms, Jones said.

While the district historically has had a shortage of qualified teachers, the problem was worsened by the statewide class-size reduction program, which has created a massive need for instructors.

Altogether in the district, 201 of 3,386 special-education teachers have not received full training and education but were given emergency credentials. Of the 8,767 bilingual teachers, 2,418 have emergency credentials, said Mike Acosta, administrator of the district's certificated employment operations branch.

The survey's findings did not surprise Ron Unz, a Silicon Valley businessman whose statewide initiative to essentially dismantle the state's bilingual programs has qualified for the November ballot.

Unz said the survey indicates that the schools must change how they teach its children English.

``For the LAUSD in its own self-review to admit freely that the system isn't working shows that maybe it's time to find a new system.''

Under the initiative, non-English speaking children would for a year be placed in a class with a English-speaking teacher. After that, they would be transfered to a traditional classroom.

The state auditors will be looking at the effectiveness of several programs, as well as how the money is spent.

The LAUSD has agreed to have a quarter of its schools undergo the review process annually, instead of having the entire district go through examination every four years like other smaller systems.

``With such a major review, we were never able to ask if the kids are learning, we had to focus on rules and regulations,'' said Fred Tempes, director of compliance for the California Department of Education.

``Now we're focused on outcomes,'' Tempes said.

A report on the state team's findings will be completed Feb. 6.

Teaching shortage noted

While Tempes said ``there were lots of low-achieving schools to choose from,'' LAUSD officials made it clear they wanted their students to raise their scores.

``We were pleased that the district didn't hide from high standards,'' he said.

Problems with special-education and bilingual instruction are nothing new to the district, and the state team will likely focus its attention on those programs.

In 1996, the district was found to be systematically violating the civil rights of special-education students, in part because of a lack of qualified teachers. Attempting to skirt a long court battle and budget-breaking settlement, the LAUSD agreed on a five-year program to rebuild the special-education system.

And in 1993, the district's bilingual program in middle and high schools was found be be seriously out of compliance with the law - including inadequate numbers of trained teachers.

State officials have said that they are satisfied that the district is rectifying the problems with its bilingual program in middle and high schools, so that portion of the review will focus on elementary schools, Tempes said.