ROMER TARGETS 14 LAUSD SCHOOLS LOW TEST SCORES MERIT EXTRA ATTENTION, SUPERINTENDENT SAYS.

Byline: Sonia Giordani Staff Writer

R - LAUSD Superintendent Roy Romer on Friday identified 14 struggling campuses, including Olive Vista Middle School in Sylmar, where bolstering test scores and providing more teacher training will be imperative this year.

The schools haven't shown improvements in student test scores in two years, and LAUSD officials hope to prevent them from following in the footsteps of 10 others that the state Department of Education put on discipline last month for failing to improve over a four-year period.

e don't want to wait until the last minute on these schools,'' said Rowena Lagrosa, executive administrator of educational services for Los Angeles Unified School District. ``We're not targeting them. But we want to take a more assertive approach.''

The other schools are Audubon, Drew and Gage middle schools; Banning, Bell, Belmont, Crenshaw, Franklin, Hollywood, Manual Arts and Washington Prep high schools; and Towne Avenue Elementary.

But board member David Tokofsky said other schools that desperately need intervention didn't make it onto Romer's 14-member list. And he said the district should have been doing more over the last 18 months to assist those schools now under review by the state.

``This is a political hot-air war being fought at a distance when the only way to win is to introduce ground troops into these locations now,'' Tokofsky said.

Romer could not be immediately reached Friday. But Lagrosa said the 14 schools will be first in line for funds earmarked for new literacy and staff training efforts.

While these schools receive federal funding, they are not part of state programs assisting underperforming schools.