VALLEY STUDENTS HELP ROMER GET EDUCATION ON POLITICIANS' RADAR.

Byline: BRAD A. GREENBERG

Staff Writer

VALLEY GLEN -- Marking his first visit to Los Angeles since retiring as schools chief last fall, Roy Romer met with students at Grant High School on Wednesday as part of a national bid to make education a priority in the upcoming presidential campaign.

In town to promote the newly created Strong American Schools, a group he leads, Romer listened as teens from six San Fernando Valley high schools listed reasons why learning is a challenge these days:

Apathetic teachers. Unavailable college counselors. Low expectations.

"A lot of the people who are in charge of our education, they don't expect us to do anything," said Aaron Sanchez, a junior at Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley, who blamed that on a perception that children of immigrants won't attend college no matter how much they learn in high school.

" ... All it took for me was a teacher taking two minutes to say, 'Aaron, look, you can do what I am doing. You can be a pilot, you can be a paramedic,' which is what I want to be," he said. "Two minutes of her time was all it took. That's what motivated me."

Joined on the panel by state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell and MTV News correspondent SuChin Pak, Romer visited Grant High not as the man in charge, but as an education advocate trying to effect change through the presidential primaries.

"It's a terrible thing that you graduate and walk up to a college and they say, 'You're not qualified to be here," Romer told about 60 students who filed into Grant's library for the discussion.

"We want you to speak to these presidential candidates, in both parties. Tell them where your lives are. Tell them what you are hoping for and what you fear."

During Romer's six-year stint at the helm of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the district built more new schools than in the 60 years prior. But the LAUSD was plagued by a dropout rate pegged as high as 50 percent. Romer noted Wednesday that more than 1 million students nationwide quit school each year, about one every 29 seconds.

His focus now is to amplify the cry for education reform. The campaign is not pushing a cure for solving the United States' educational ailments, but is urging presidential candidates -- beginning with Republicans attending the party's first debate at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley tonight -- to focus on "three common-sense priorities that hold tremendous promise for improving education" -- education standards, teacher quality and increased time and support for learning.

"There will be differences of opinion on how you implement them," Romer said after the Q&A with the students, which will be televised on MTV News. "That is healthy. We're not coming in with a prescription."

With polls showing that education doesn't rank in the top five of most Americans' most pressing concerns -- especially with the continuing war in Iraq -- Romer's group will try to reach 1 million people during the upcoming election to drive home the issue's importance.

"America has gone to sleep," Romer said during a Daily News editorial board meeting after Wednesday's event at Grant High. "They think the good life comes without effort."

The 18-month campaign is co-funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, which have committed up to $60 million for grass-roots organizing, advertising and e-marketing.

"To really accomplish significant education reform, we need to mobilize the American people to engage in a dialogue with our country's leaders," said Broad Foundation spokeswoman Karen Denne. "We're hoping that this campaign will be a wake-up call to the American people. That education is the one issue that affects every other issue affecting this country."

The hourlong discussion at Grant concluded with roaring applause for Jacob Levin, a senior at North Hollywood High School, who argued that school districts were hamstrung from providing better student services by a federal government that underfunds education.

"You can't expect to have an education system that works," Jacob said, "if you don't give kids the money they need to be able to get to college."

"That was fantastic," MTV News' Pak said. "You guys are some of the smartest kids. I feel better already."

Staff Writer Naush Boghossian contributed to this report.

brad.greenberg(at)dailynews.com

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2 photos

Photo:

(1) From left, ex-LAUSD official Roy Romer, state schools chief Jack O'Connell and MTV reporter SuChin Pak meet with students.

(2) Ex-LAUSD Superintendent Roy Romer makes a point while state schools chief Jack O'Connell listens.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer