Thursday, May 2, 1996
UCLA grad schools assist in community project to improve primary
educationBy Suzanne Scollo
Daily Bruin Contributor
In the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, many prominent
community members vowed to increase their involvement in primary
education.
And just a few months later, residents from the San Fernando
Valley to Claremont received colorful pamphlets advertising a bold
new school reform project called Los Angeles Education Alliance for
Restructuring Now (LEARN).
Unbeknownst to many Bruins, UCLA played a vital role in shaping
the ideals and practicalities of the project.
The project stresses community and coordination in order to
better communicate with one another.
"It is common sense that teaching and learning need to be most
important," said Joe Palumbo, an instructor and school adviser.
"Everyday classroom instruction needs to be focused on the
children. That’s what it is supposed to be about."
The project was created by a group of community leaders to
educate principals and teachers throughout the district on how to
better manage their schools. The project has enabled Los Angeles
schools to reform their learning processes and curriculum so that
parents have more control over a learning process that has
traditionally been dominated by teachers and administrators.
The "process" as Seth Cutler, leader in residence instructor for
the UCLA program, calls it is one where the principal and a lead
teacher from the school attend management and technology courses
for 18 months to gain skills useful in better managing their
schools.
The training that UCLA provides is a series of seminars, weekend
retreats, and summer instruction periods based in budgeting,
managing,and increasing communication and technology between all
aspects of the school community.
In addition to the 18-month instruction program, participants
who have been successful in the program in the past are available
on a rotating basis among schools to help the effectiveness of the
skills learned.
"(LEARN) has really given us the skills  along with a
variety of (participants) Â to focus on student achievement
and learning with a sense of urgency," Cutler said.
LEARN and Los Angeles school reform efforts have been assisted
by the School Management Program, an attempt by UCLA’s Anderson
School and the Graduate School of Education and Information
Sciences to create a working model for teachers unions across the
country to follow. The model is anticipated to assist the labor
unions to better communicate with administrators.
So far, including the next session which begins this month, the
School Management Program has had 300 Los Angeles Unified School
District schools attend their workshops. In the past four years,
nearly half of he district has been involved with the program.
As UCLA teaches communities with the School Management Program,
the students are the ultimate benefactors of the educating process.
The goal of the program is to give the community the tools it needs
to empower the children by developing useful leadership skills.
"It has helped to change the culture (of our school) into one of
professional training and growth," Cutler said.
UCLA begins yet another leg of the race with an attempt to bring
education into the 21st century. The grant they received will be
overseen by Helen Bernstein, United Teachers of Los Angles
president and an instrumental player in the LEARN program, along
with the others.
Bernstein is expected to discuss the goals of the research in
the following months at UCLA.
"I think that the bottom line is that there is no time to waste.
Everybody wants their school to be better yesterday," Palumbo
said.