SCHOOL DISTRICT STILL AIMING FOR THE TOP BOARD OF EDUCATION MEMBERS NOW REVISING - NOT RETREATING FROM GOALS.

Byline: Jose Huizar and Marlene Canter 

RECENT reports suggest that the LAUSD Board of Education first adopted a goal of moving into the top 10 percent of urban districts in the nation, then dropped this goal.

This is, quite simply, inaccurate. In fact, we are not dropping our aspiration to be one of the best urban districts in the country; we are actually expanding the goal to better represent the vision of a resurgent Los Angeles Unified School District.

What, then, is going on?

In June the board began a process of developing a vision and long-term goal for the LAUSD to ensure that the public, the superintendent, individual board members and all district staff would be on the same page about where the district is going. The establishment of a vision and the associated metrics would provide the public with transparency as to where the school district is trying to go and how it is progressing.

Equally important, after setting the vision for the district, the superintendent would create, along with the board, a plan on how the district would achieve that vision.

As part of this process, the board initially discussed a draft goal of moving into the top 10 percent of urban districts in the nation by 2010. At a retreat held Sept. 2, the board expressed interest in refining the proposed goal.

However, this desire to revise the draft goal did not involve backing off the high expectations set by the draft goal. Instead, the revision occurred from the board's desire to use well-thought-out metrics by which to measure our progress to our goal and to keep the goal from simply being something that merely ``sounds good.''

The board also agreed that while there is no simple national ranking of urban districts on a common scale, this does not mean that the goal of being in the top 10 percent of urban districts is impossible (or even very difficult) to measure. We realized that we need to use several different measures to accurately depict the state of our schools - including benchmarking where we are as a district and where we will be in 2010, and how we compare with other California school districts.

The problem with focusing solely on national measures is that it could lead to district staff underemphasizing the importance of California's own specific academic standards. A more motivational and useful set of measures for how the district is doing would answer three questions:

--How is the LAUSD improving when measured against its own historical performance?

--How does the LAUSD compare with other districts in California?

--How does the LAUSD compare with its peers across the nation?

All three sets of comparisons are important, and all three comparisons will be incorporated into the final goal.

In fact, using multiple measures is important in itself, as it helps to prevent any ``gaming'' of the results (i.e., reducing dropout rates by lowering academic expectations, or increasing SAT scores by discouraging low performers from staying in school). This is why it is important to focus on a well-thought-out set of standards for which the public can hold us accountable.

Finally, the visioning process is in the early stages. The LAUSD board is not backing away from its goal, nor is it aiming low. Instead, we are taking steps to set high, aspirational goals for the district and provide the public with a set of measures to allow it to hold the district and its leadership accountable. The board is attempting to infuse accountability by picking the right measures, not eschewing accountability by picking the easiest ones.

We owe the children of the LAUSD no less.