Los Angeles Times

Challenging the balance of power in the city's public school system, a leading charter school organization is poised to wrest control of a failing high school from the elected Los Angeles Board of Education.

Green Dot Public Schools, which has clashed frequently with the board in its aggressive push to expand, has quietly overseen the collection of signatures of support from a majority of the tenured teachers at Locke High School — clearing the major legal hurdle toward converting the campus into a series of charter schools.

Underscoring the anxiety and anger the plan is unleashing within the district, Locke Principal Frank Wells was escorted off campus and relieved of his duties late Tuesday afternoon pending the outcome of a district investigation into allegations that Wells allowed teachers to leave their classrooms to collect and sign petitions.

Wells called the charges "a total fabrication," saying no classes were disrupted as teachers signed and collected signatures during non-class time. Teachers who helped collect signatures supported Wells' version of events.

Under Green Dot's proposal, which because of state law the Los Angeles school board would appear to have little choice but to approve, the 2,800-student Watts campus would be divided into 10 small Green Dot schools beginning in fall 2008.

"It's a leap of faith, but if you believe in this partnership between Green Dot and Locke teachers, then you believe that we are trying to change education in Los Angeles by turning more attention to students' needs and empowering teachers," said Bruce Smith, an English teacher at the school.

Amid dozens of poor-performing middle and high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Locke has long languished as one of the worst. At least one of every two students drops out, while the majority who remain score at or near the bottom on standardized tests.

More than half of the school's 73 tenured teachers signed petitions this week expressing interest in converting Locke into Green Dot charters. Once verified, the petitions — copies of which were obtained by The Times and checked against a roster of the Locke faculty — would legally allow Green Dot to petition the board for control of the school. Many un-tenured teachers also signed the petitions.

With school district and union leaders quickly catching wind of the hostile-takeover plan and scrambling to counter it with a reform plan of their own, Green Dot founder Steve Barr returned early from a conference in New Orleans to hold a news conference this morning with Locke teachers and parents outside the school.

Charter schools are publicly funded but run independently, outside many of the regulations and restrictions of school districts. In exchange for the freedom to innovate in the classroom, charters are expected to improve student performance and serve as incubators for school reform. Most charters in California are start-ups that typically must rent or buy classroom space, but state law also allows for the less common conversion process.

Unlike the handful of other schools that converted to charters in L.A. Unified, Green Dot's gambit, if successful, would mark the first time an outside charter group organized a break from the district.

And Green Dot is proposing a clean break.

The group's charter petition — a copy of which was provided to The Times and which must be voted on by the seven-member school board — calls for Green Dot to receive its funding directly from the state, instead of allowing it to first pass through district coffers. Teachers who wish to remain at the deeply troubled school would have to re-apply for their jobs to principals hired by Green Dot. The extensive labor agreement negotiated by the district's teachers union would also be thrown out, as Locke teachers would work under the shorter, simpler pact signed by Green Dot's union.

Indeed, the plan promises to escalate the long-running power struggle that has pitted the fast growing Green Dot against the school board and the union, United Teachers Los Angeles — both of which have much to lose.

In addition to losing about $19 million in state funds that the district receives each year for Locke students, the school's conversion could serve as a serious setback to the school board as it scrambles to prove that it can put forth innovative reforms and drive improvements itself at dozens of low-performing schools.

Board members are particularly sensitive to criticism in light of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's ongoing efforts to gain some control of the district, during which he has publicly pounded board members — and the bureaucracy they oversee — with the criticism that they are resistant to change.

A Locke takeover would also complicate matters for Supt. David L. Brewer, who is still trying to assert his authority over the nation's second-largest district since being hired late last year. Until last month, Brewer and board President Marlene Canter were trying to strike a deal with Barr over Locke, but talks broke down over Barr's rejection of Brewer's demand that teachers be district employees, subject to the UTLA contract.

"Why would we dilute something that is working?" Barr said in an interview, referring to the promising early results his other schools have posted. "Every conversation I had with the superintendent, it was, 'Have you talked to the union?' Who runs this district: the superintendent or the union?"

Brewer expressed frustration that Barr had "moved unilaterally without finishing that discussion." He and Canter expressed hope that in coming months the district would launch an "innovation division" to help groups like Green Dot implement their reform plans in district schools, while keeping them part of the district.

For their part, union officials stand to lose more than just the dues-paying members who bolt to Green Dot. Union leaders have been some of the harshest critics of the charter movement in Los Angeles, and of Green Dot in particular. The support for Green Dot by rank-and-file Locke teachers could undermine the authority of union leaders and their position as major power brokers in the district — especially if teachers at other schools follow suit.

"I'm going to urge teachers around the city to rise up and take control of their schools," said English teacher Smith, who plans to speak at today's news conference. "You can cross out Locke and put in Roosevelt High, or Dorsey or Crenshaw."

The decision to remove Wells came days after he visited a Green Dot campus and publicly lashed out at the district, saying it would take "revolutionary" change to improve his school.

Brewer and top officials said Wells' contract as principal will not be renewed next year because of "leadership problems" during his three years on campus. The allegations surrounding the signatures forced them to remove him immediately, they said.

A.J. Duffy, president of the union, angrily denounced Green Dot's collection of signatures, saying teachers should have been given a chance to first hear other reform ideas from the union and other groups. He said the union is trying to pull together a counter plan to present to Locke teachers in coming weeks.

"When a staff gets all the information to make a decision … we would support whatever they want, even if we disagree with it," he said. "I understand the teachers' frustrations. The district is not receptive to change and as hard as we have pushed we have not been able to convince them that change is needed. But, I guess they've got the message now."

THREE CHEERS for Locke High School.

Three cheers for its courageous teachers and stalwart principal, who have chosen to break with the dithering Los Angeles Unified School District and a hidebound teachers union to become a Green Dot charter school.

Three cheers for the fed-up parents who showed up at Locke on Thursday morning to lob the first volleys in a revolution that only begins with the school's emancipation.

By signing petitions to become the first school to secede from L.A. Unified, teachers at long-suffering Locke have jeopardized their own livelihoods and careers. They have no guarantee of employment under Green Dot, but they are putting the needs of their students first.

Principal Frank Wells has already paid the price for demanding change. He was escorted off the Locke campus Tuesday as punishment for working to create a bright future for his students. His crime? Allegedly permitting teachers to use class time to sign the charter petitions. He denies this impropriety happened. Helping students sounds so simple, but look what it's taken: a rogue school, secret petitions, a career damaged.

Green Dot had been negotiating with the school district over converting Locke, but a major sticking point was the charter organization's refusal to have teachers remain district employees, covered by the teachers union contract. And so, the bleating of the teachers union trumped the needs of students. Is anyone surprised?

Supt. David L. Brewer said the district's goal was, and remains, to work with Green Dot to reform not just Locke but also its feeder middle and elementary schools. But the district wanted more time, so Green Dot is going solo.

The time to quibble and negotiate is not while the house is on fire. And no rational observer disputes the fact that the LAUSD is fully engulfed. There can't be a timetable. Teachers want action. They would rather have better, merit-based pay with Green Dot than the end-of-career benefits provided by their current contract. They want support, order, real input on how to teach and enforced standards of behavior. They want, in fact, the same things that parents and students want. But they're stymied by the same foe: a district bureaucracy that pledges allegiance to reform and then locks out a principal who pursues it.

The events at Locke give clarity to the real struggle for Los Angeles public schools. On one side are devoted teachers, brave administrators and long-suffering students and parents. On the other are narrow and defensive interests, dedicated to protecting a failed system. There should be no doubt about who deserves to win.

The lesson was polling. Math teacher Fernando Avila acted as pollster, the students as respondents and the four corners of the classroom their opinions: strongly agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree, strongly disagree. The topic: How Locke High School in Watts had changed since being taken over by charter operator Green Dot Public Schools.

Were the school uniforms of chinos and polo shirts a good idea? The students shuffled into their chosen corners. Many hated the uniforms; some liked them; some were indifferent. And so it went, the students distributing themselves among the corners for each question -- until they were asked whether teachers cared more about them and their education this year, and the entire class crowded into "strongly agree."

Locke High School represents the kind of transformation that can take place practically overnight under committed, energetic new leadership. As the school struggles with crowding and early signs of student backsliding, however, it also illustrates the pervasive and persistent difficulties that challenge urban schools.


Defying logic

Math teacher Carlos Perez believes he has a special understanding of his students. He grew up in the neighborhood but made good, attending UC Santa Cruz. At that rustic campus, he remembers the wonder of waking up and seeing deer outside his window instead of graffiti. He returned to Watts determined to help its teenagers. This is his third year at Locke, and he thinks there's more "student buy-in" to what school is all about. But when he tries to tell students that they can achieve what he did or even more, most don't believe him.

To a visitor, his geometry class looks chaotic. In the front, groups of students are noisily practicing their skills with congruent figures; in the back, others are quietly but obviously engaged in social chatter. Girls are plucking boys' eyebrows; meanwhile, the first groups finish their work and borrow a deck of cards from Perez, shouting and cursing as they play. Perez ignores the bluster, moving from student to student, quietly conferring to see if anyone needs help. When he reaches the laggards, they pull out their papers and get to work, and when he wants the class' full attention, he stands in front of the room and speaks in his quiet, gentle voice. In just a few moments, the students settle down.

In Perez's eyes, it's all about appreciating what different students need, especially given their almost universal fear of math. He doesn't worry about the loud ones, because they're always on top of their work. It's the quiet ones who have trouble understanding and avoid tackling the problems, and he allows them to delay -- for a while. He won't ask for an answer from a student who's unlikely to know it; public embarrassment, he is certain, is not the way to teach them.

Though everyone completes the geometry practice, the class defies conventional logic. No student spent even half the period on task; wouldn't they learn more if they were engaged in their subject more of the time? Eventually, test scores will tell, but in the back of Perez's classroom, one sophomore thinks she has the answer. She doesn't like most of the changes at Locke, she says. The tight security means "I don't get to ditch no more," and the uniforms are ugly. But she's certain that she's learning math better and faster than she was last year.

Requiring patience

Each morning at Locke, some students show up without their uniforms; they're sent to the loaner rooms. At each bell, walkie-talkie-equipped staff members position themselves at strategic points on campus to urge students toward their next classes, order their shirts tucked in and keep watch against taggers.

The campus of more than 1,800 students is divided into smaller "academies." Two are for freshmen, who are coached intensively on algebra and other high school skills. Another offers "credit recovery" to students who are so far behind on the courses needed to graduate, they need self-paced online classes to catch up. And one is devoted solely to students who are "back from camp" -- recently released from juvenile hall and a potential disruption to regular classes.

After a tightly controlled start to the new year, some plans are unraveling slightly. An enrollment battle with L.A. Unified ended with Locke being forced to accept extra students. The two main academies on campus, for sophomores through seniors, were supposed to be capped at 650 students each and now have 800, many of whom didn't show up until October.

Less than two weeks ago, someone started a fire in a bathroom. After two months of high attendance, absenteeism rose substantially in November. About 40 students stopped coming to school altogether; many of them returned, but now more have gone missing.

At its other charter schools, Green Dot can control against such frustrations. It caps enrollment at 500 and has waiting lists of motivated parents and students who want exactly what Green Dot has to offer: safer campuses, more academic rigor. But in its boldest experiment, taking over a large urban school, it no longer has these luxuries. Locke is the neighborhood school and educates most of the neighborhood's students. Ronnie Coleman, director of the two biggest academies, hopes for rising test scores this year but predicts that Locke's scores will substantially drag down the Green Dot average.

Still, in ways, the school has come far academically. Avila remembers burned-out teachers who sat in the back of their classrooms reading or snoozing. This year, the school is staffed with idealistic young instructors. Ask to meet an older teacher and you'd probably be steered to Avila, who at age 30 and with eight years at the school is a senior figure. Some students sense the inexperience in their new teachers, but what they lack in classroom years, they make up for in zeal.

They need it. Working with students who haven't developed academic habits, or an understanding of why they should even bother with school, requires utter patience.

Coleman reinforces this dozens of times a day. Between classes, she directs one of her "trouble children" to tuck in his shirt. The student tentatively pushes one corner of the hem toward his belt, ever so slowly, clearly hoping Coleman is too busy to wait for him to obey, or possibly to provoke a reaction. "I'm a patient woman, sir," she says. Half-an-hour later, the student is walking across the quad with his shirttail out. Coleman sighs, noting that if teenagers have to rebel, it's better if it's about something as innocuous as a tucked shirt. Similarly, in a meeting with the Spanish faculty, she advises teachers not to bother lecturing students about classroom profanity; it just escalates into a confrontation with those who resent authority figures and wastes instructional time.

Yet in Lucrecia Nava's English Language Development class, expectations for behavior are high, and the students meet them. Every moment of the 90-minute class is devoted to intense instruction, reading, writing and speaking in English, each task checked off on a large list tacked to the wall. The mental effort is palpable as the students struggle to construct sentences in an unfamiliar language.

Nava speaks loudly and enunciates distinctly as she leads the class through a persuasive five-paragraph essay. Ready ready ready? she asks. Is it better when the two academies have lunch together or, as they usually do, separately? Give three reasons why. The students vote for separate lunches. There's more space; the lines are shorter; and "we avoid problems," one boy says, meaning there's less chance of a fight.

After class, Nava is asked what will happen to these students, who can barely read an English sentence aloud, when they have to take the high school exit exam. "Absolutely, they can pass," she says. And then, as though she is speaking for all the teenagers and teachers at Locke, she adds, "They just have to work harder. They'll always have to work harder at everything."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-locke1-2008dec01,0,3516061.story

One in a series of occasional articles on the reform effort at Locke High School. 

Locke High School opened last week under new management, and things look strikingly different.

About 1 in 9 Locke students scores proficient or better in English on state tests. In math, it's fewer than 1 in 25. And more students drop out than graduate.

The stakes are high for students, but also for Green Dot and the charter-school movement. Locke represents a major expansion for Green Dot and its success -- or failure -- will be watched by education reformers around the country.

"Locke is a full test of the charter model because the agreement with Green Dot is they will take all children in that attendance area," said L.A. schools Supt. David L. Brewer. "We expect they're going to have the same kids we have had there before."

In trying to boost test scores and graduation rates, Green Dot will wield flexibility uncommon in L.A. Unified. Charters are independently run, publicly financed schools. They are exempt from district union contracts and from some rules that govern traditional schools.

Green Dot can hire and fire principals at will, without finding other jobs for them, as L.A. Unified does. Teachers also work with fewer job protections. Like many charter companies, Green Dot typically employs a younger, less experienced and less expensive staff than L.A. Unified, which allows Green Dot to pay young teachers more while also helping to keep class sizes smaller.

Locke also will benefit from extra state funding for low-achieving schools as well as private philanthropy. An actor made an anonymous donation of more than $200,000 for the new, mature trees, which instantly gave the well-worn 40-year-old campus a more tended, artful feeling. Donations are paying, too, for $400,000 in other physical improvements.

Meanwhile, because Green Dot has split Locke into seven separately run academies, the school will run up a deficit of $3 million to $6 million over the first four years, an expense also covered by benefactors. (After that, Green Dot schools are expected to meet expenses without charity.)

None of which will necessarily make the job easy.

"The task Green Dot's taking on is monumental," said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the district teachers union. "The school district has shown for 20 years or more they can't do this job."

Former Locke teacher and dean Frank Wiley, who now teaches at Hamilton High, said frustration with years of failure and mismanagement led him to join the narrow majority of Locke's tenured teachers who signed a charter petition. That document became the legal basis for Green Dot's takeover. But Wiley didn't remain at Locke; at 45, he worried that the intensity of the Locke project could lead to teacher burn-out.

"At Hamilton, I have regular high school kids," Wiley said. "If you come prepared, they come prepared to learn. At Locke, it's like there's a postwar syndrome. I loved who the students were and what they were about. But there's an edge. These kids have a hard life."

Green Dot typically starts a school with only a freshman class, adding one year at a time to build, gradually, a culture of academic excellence. At Locke, Green Dot inherited a ready-made student body.

Most students complied with the uniform policy, but many had to line up during opening week for loaner polo shirts and khaki pants.

"We can't show our gear anymore," complained junior Rafael Reyes as he pulled on a regulation shirt.

"You can't even tell who everybody is 'cause they all look the same," said Kevin Simpson, a sophomore.

Senior Terry Vance finally stalked out of the gear line. "I don't wear no uniform," he said quietly.

But no one got past the guard on 111th Street, who turned back students who slyly insisted they'd been told to go home for lack of a uniform.

One of the last long-timers to depart was music department fixture Reggie Andrews, 60, a respected local figure and musician who started teaching at Locke in 1969, one year after the school's celebrated opening in response to the 1965 Watts riots. He quickly became a cornerstone of stability as the school churned through teachers and administrators.

Andrews recruited teachers to support the Locke takeover effort; he said he believed Green Dot would encourage meaningful faculty and community input. But later he judged Green Dot to be inflexible, not inclusive enough.

Andrews and others pushed for vocational classes as an alternative to Green Dot's standard college-prep formula.

Chief Operating Officer Marco Petruzzi insists that his team listened. This year, there's an academy for students far behind in credits. Their school day will consist of four hours in a massive computer lab, where students work at their own pace, with teachers standing by.

Andrews counters that the program stigmatizes failing students, when it also could offer enriching, appealing courses in music and fashion design, for example.

Although Green Dot runs the show, athletic director Stephen Minix said staff involvement in the life of the school and its students has expanded enormously.

Concerns voiced by staff led to a $500,000 commitment in buses or, where possible, bus passes for students living more than five blocks from school. The goal is to spare students from having to cross rival gangs' turf.

During the registration process, some parents appeared largely uninformed about anything to do with Green Dot.

Others defended the quality of the old Locke, recalling good teachers, pointing to their child's good grades or characterizing campus safety concerns as overblown.

But returning parent Tonja Turner recounted her move to Redlands because, she said, gang members threatened her son on campus.

The new Locke, she believes, will serve her two daughters well.

"There wasn't any order here, any structure," she said. "It was chaotic."

Some students said they already see positive changes.

"Last year, some teachers didn't care," said senior Juan Gonzalez, 17. "My history teacher wouldn't do nothing. This year my teacher is ready to teach, and I'm ready to learn."

http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-locke18-2008sep18,0,6110974.story?page=1

It's almost 8 a.m. on 111th Street in Watts, and here's a scene that could make a cynic faint:

A teenage boy is hustling across the street toward Locke High School while tucking a white shirt into his khaki uniform pants. He wants to pass inspection at the gate.

I'm visiting what might as well be called Dropout High to see if things have changed in the early going since Green Dot Public Schools took it over from Los Angeles Unified. Too soon to tell, for sure. We're only into the third week of summer school, which tends to be mellower than the regular school year and serves only 700 kids instead of the usual 3,000.

The first thing I see after I park and walk onto campus are roughly three dozen tardy kids lined up against a fence just a couple of minutes after the hour, with Assistant Principal Charles Boulden giving them what for. On a megaphone, no less.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he barks, "school starts at 8 o'clock; 8:02 is like 8:14 to us."

Two kids roll their eyes when I ask what they think of their new drill sergeant.

"Nothing's going to change," one tells me while the other nods in agreement.

But they're wearing uniforms. That's a change. And they're about to be marked tardy, then led to their classrooms in small groups.

Other students say this clearly is not the Locke they knew last year.

Sure it's different, says Charles Brown, who will be a senior this fall.

"It's very radical," he says of the uniforms and the discipline.

Senior Lee Jones agrees it's a new day. "There's tighter security and it's more strict" in classrooms and on the yard, with security people everywhere. "They won't even let you in without your shirt tucked in."

There hasn't been a fight yet, says Michael McElveen, another senior. Two weeks without a fight is a good sign at Locke, his pals admit, even if it is usually quieter in summer. The students also agree that the uniform has its advantages -- you don't have to waste time and money on the fashions of the day.

Zeus Cubias, who has taught at Locke for 14 years after graduating from the school and going on to UC Santa Barbara, says the early indicators are encouraging. There were skeptics who said the uniforms alone would doom the experiment. Not only has there been compliance, but only a couple of the boys seem to feel bold enough to test the ban on sagging pants.

But will higher pockets mean higher grades?

"Part of it is setting the right tone," says Cubias. Right off the bat, you step onto campus knowing there's control, discipline and high expectations, and the reality is that's something most kids wanted.

"We had to step up our game, too," Cubias says. "I'm wearing a tie every day now."

Cubias is one of the Locke teachers who originally felt insulted by Green Dot chief Steve Barr's claim that he could do a better job than L.A. Unified. Cubias spoke up about it, telling Barr he and other teachers had made strides despite great challenges.

"Steve Barr's response was that that was exactly the kind of passion he was looking for," says Cubias, who became a convert during the long, acrimonious battle that ended with Green Dot winning support for a takeover.

When school starts in September, only 40 of last year's 120 teachers will still be there. Some left of their own accord; others weren't hired back.

Green Dot has hired 80 new teachers, created a separate and more intensive program for ninth-graders and divided Locke into several academies.

With the help of private donations, class sizes will be kept at about 28 instead of 40. Teachers will have more say on curriculum and teaching methods, and the Green Dot model is thin on administration.

In many ways, it's the antithesis of L.A. Unified, the listing Battleship Bureaucracy, with its staggering dropout rate and glacial pace when it comes to change.

Locke High represents Green Dot's biggest risk and greatest challenge yet. It didn't start a new school with students who chose to attend, as it has in the past. It adopted a massive dysfunctional mess, and if it can turn things around, maybe the lessons can be broadly applied.

Wayne Crawford, longtime Locke dean and head football coach, was another early skeptic even though he felt strongly that with fed-up teachers and inept district leadership, LAUSD was never going to save Locke. Could Green Dot do any better, he wondered, given that it had no history of taking in the most difficult children of derelict parents?

"This summer school is one of the best I've ever had at Locke," says Crawford. "The kids are in class, and it's more structured."

He excuses himself to fill in briefly for a teacher, taking charge immediately and sternly when a student gets up from his desk while others are giggling.

"Have a seat, and don't get silly," he orders the student. "Excuse me, young people. If you're taking a test in here, you should all be focused."

They clam up instantly.

While Cubias is escorting me across campus, he suddenly stops and points to something that can't be seen.

"Serenity," he says.

That's something new. Teachers are letting students out for brief breaks, but the uniformed kids are orderly and quiet. Teacher Tobin Paap says this is a dramatic difference from his Locke teaching experience from 1999 to 2001, after which he left the profession, burned out and demoralized.

"I felt like it was at the height of the craziness," says Paap, 34, who briefly went home to Boston to work for a suburban YMCA. He needed to decompress after the madness at Locke.

"There were hundreds of ditched kids who'd hang out. They'd sit right here," he says, showing me the ramp to the bungalow that was his classroom back then. "They smoked weed, played radios, spray-painted the walls and climbed on the roof."

I figure he's kidding, or at least exaggerating.

Not in the least, Paap says. He documented and reported all of it, but nothing ever happened to the young thugs.

When he returned to teaching in L.A., Paap says, it was with Green Dot. He knew every kid and every counselor -- as well as most of the parents -- so there were consequences when a student acted up. This fall, he'll be stationed in Inglewood. But he thinks Locke is going to be much better off than in the past.

Time will tell, and I'll keep an eye on the progress. But given the tagging and pot-smoking chaos Paap described -- and a dropout rate for which LAUSD should be ashamed -- how can Locke not be better off?

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez23-2008jul23,0,6056813.column

Locke High School is on the verge of a transformation that didn't come quite soon enough to prevent this month's melee involving hundreds of students. Behind the brawl were decades of neglect by the Los Angeles Unified School District. But the swift response by the new school leaders in town -- charter operator Steve Barr and the district's No. 2 man, Ramon C. Cortines -- brought a seeming promise that the inertia is coming to an end.

Locke has long exemplified the underachievement and safety concerns that ail L.A.'s inner-city schools. Now, preparing for a takeover by Barr's Green Dot Public Schools, it might become a model of how dramatically a student-centered approach can buoy a foundering school. Already, Barr speaks with encouraging specificity about what it will take to make his students secure and to educate them better: buses to ensure safe passage to and from campus; breaking the school into smaller academies, each with its own cafeteria and staggered lunch hours to limit the number of students loose on campus at any time; a building-trades academy with a college-prep curriculum; engaged teachers who aren't averse to patrolling the campus if it keeps students safer and saves money for, say, reducing class sizes. Barr is even looking for oak trees to provide more hospitable spots on campus where small groups can gather, instead of the single shady zone where hundreds now crowd together and any toe-stepping can easily get out of hand.

Barr, who has specialized in small campuses that offer an alternative to public schools, has never taken on a challenge like Locke -- a full 2,600-student neighborhood school. Many eyes will be watching whether or how he pulls it off. Among those watching most closely will be Cortines, the district's senior deputy superintendent, who sees charters not as a drain on his authority but as a template for improving schools districtwide. That alone is so refreshing that it allows for rare optimism about L.A. Unified.

Unlike previous administrators, Cortines did not respond to a crisis at one of his schools with calls for yet another study, or with charts defensively showing that other district schools are improving. He walked the Locke campus and afterward spoke frankly about students wandering the halls without passes and teachers running movies for their classes rather than instructing them. (One parent calls the school the "ghetto cineplex.") At Locke and throughout the district, he said, there is an alarming inconsistency. Some teachers strive heroically to educate, while others preside over classroom card games.

Cortines was equally straightforward about how the district has failed Locke. After Barr won approval last fall to take over the school, administrators washed their hands of it, cutting security staffing by half. Classroom fights became frequent, and teachers' calls for help went unanswered.

Administrators have known for years how bad things are at Locke, where more than half the students drop out and only 13% test as proficient in math. They just haven't done much about it. Several years ago, dedicated teachers drew up a plan to transform the school. Approved by the local district, it then disappeared within the central office. Cortines already has empowered local superintendents to reform their schools without seeking downtown approval at every step. He bluntly says L.A.'s schools must view charters competitively if they want to hold on to their students.

The new senior deputy superintendent faces a daunting task. It's harder to force change when labor contracts are larded with rigid work rules and make it virtually impossible to fire apathetic employees. But as long as leaders like Barr and Cortines engage in clear, honest talk instead of excuses and obfuscation, there's hope that education will trump bureaucracy at L.A. Unified.

The decision is especially controversial since numerous teachers withdrew their signatures from a petition calling for the conversion.

The board action, by a 5-2 vote, calls for the Locke petition to come before the school board for an up-or-down vote in two weeks. But if board members were opposed, they could simply have sided with senior school district administrators, who cited the withdrawn signatures as the reason they initially declined to bring the petition before the board.

"I intend to vote for it," board member Richard Vladovic, who represents the Locke area, said in a brief interview. "It has my strong support."

In other action, a divided school board voted 5 to 2 Tuesday evening to extend health benefits to more than 2,300 part-time cafeteria workers at an estimated annual cost of $35.5 million.

The move came over warnings from staff and Supt. David L. Brewer that no money was budgeted to pay for the benefits. Supporters called it a social justice issue; opponents said it was fiscally irresponsible.

The decision on Locke was a clear victory for Steve Barr, the founder of Green Dot Public Schools, which is seeking to take over Locke after an aborted try at Jefferson High School. Barr, who has supported Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's school-intervention efforts, runs a group of small L.A.-area charter schools that have posted higher test scores and graduation rates than nearby public schools. His critics contend that he works with a more select -- or at least more motivated -- student body.

"I'm proud of the board and proud of the parents and the teachers of Locke," said Barr after the vote. "When all is said and done, we're going to work together and make Locke a great school. People around the country are going to come to Watts and see what a great urban turnaround school looks like."

Barr stopped short of saying that the charter approval was all but guaranteed: "It seemed like it." In the meantime, he said, "I'm going to the Locke football game on Friday and root them on."

The South Los Angeles school is among the lowest-performing schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In 2005, there were 332 graduates from a class that, as ninth-graders, had 1,318 students. Only 143 qualified for admission to the University of California system.

The school system on its own isn't ready to offer quick reforms, board member Yolie Flores Aguilar said. "We need to offer that change right now."

Barr is already in discussions with district officials over changes to the Locke petition that would bring it more in line with those at other schools that have converted to charter status. The need to finish those revisions resulted in the delay.

Some L.A. Unified schools, including Granada Hills and Pacific Palisades high schools, have converted to charters, but they are run by teachers, administrators and others. Locke would be the first "conversion charter" to be operated by an outside group, and the first such school for Green Dot.

The board action was cheered by more than 100 Green Dot employees, parents and supporters. But there also were opponents, many of whom wore the bright red T-shirts of United Teachers Los Angeles, the teachers union.

"You are about to give away a public high school campus to a private entity, and it's not right," said Mathew Taylor, a union area director for the part of town that includes Locke.

Charter schools are independently run public schools freed from some rules and constraints that apply to other public schools. Among them: They are not bound by district collective-bargaining agreements. Most charters are nonunion; Barr's are an exception, although his employees are represented by the California Teachers Assn., rather than United Teachers Los Angeles, the exclusive bargaining agent with L.A. Unified. Barr has not ruled out a UTLA-negotiated contract for Locke.

Green Dot shocked district officials in May when it announced that a majority of Locke's tenured teachers had signed petitions in support of a takeover, clearing the major legal barrier to conversion.

District officials countered with promises to teachers of increased authority and reforms if Locke remained within the district. Officials said 18 teachers rescinded their signatures. The tally of charter supporters dwindled to 24, well short of the 37 that would have equaled 50% of the tenured faculty, said Gregory McNair, who heads the district's charter-school division.

"The sales pitch was whether I would like to see changes at Locke," said teacher Jessica Tang, who said she did not understand the petition's ramifications. Tang withdrew her signature.

Political winds shifted in Green Dot's direction with the ascension, in July, of a board majority allied with Villaraigosa, who has said he supports charter schools.

The "no" votes Tuesday were from Julie Korenstein and Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte. Korenstein sided with teachers who wanted their own ongoing reform efforts to have more time to pan out. She also echoed some union officials, saying that Green Dot should be allowed to bring its charter forward only when it could demonstrate support from 50% of teachers.

"Otherwise there are people at the school who will perceive this as a hostile takeover," Korenstein said.

Board member Tamar Galatzan responded: "You're presuming this isn't 50% of the teachers. That's something we disagree on. . . . No court has ruled on that particular issue."

After the board vote, an angry LaMotte said: "It's over. The legalities don't matter."

California public schools dominated a national ranking of high schools released Friday, countering the usual depiction of the state's schools as lagging behind their counterparts elsewhere in the country.

In a first-ever ranking of high schools by U.S. News & World Report magazine -- best-known for its influential and controversial ranking of colleges and universities -- 23 of the top 100 schools in the nation were from California, including 10 from the Los Angeles area.

No other state has as many schools on the list, although New York City and its suburbs, with 20 schools, have by far the most of any metropolitan area, and Massachusetts has the highest percentage of its schools ranked among the top 505 profiled.

The top-ranked school in California was Pacific Collegiate School, a charter campus in Santa Cruz, which was ranked No. 2 in the country behind Thomas Jefferson High in Virginia, just outside Washington,D.C.

Also in the top 10 were the Oxford Academy at No. 4, a college preparatory school in the Anaheim Union High School District that accepts students by examination, and the Preuss School at No. 10, a charter school under the joint oversight of the San Diego Unified School District and UC San Diego. The Preuss School is currently under a cloud because of allegations of grade-tampering, but that would apparently not have affected its ranking, since U.S. News relied on standardized test scores, not grades.

In the Los Angeles area, the top-rated school was Gretchen Whitney High in Cerritos, at No. 12. The ranking was the latest in a long list of honors for the school, and Principal Patricia Hager was both proud and circumspect.
"Well, I'd like to be No. 1," she joked in an interview. "I'm very proud because this is a very special place, and I appreciate any opportunity I get to have that recognized."

At the same time, she said, "It's interesting how we define things like 'successful' and 'top performer' -- what does it mean? As a public educator, it concerns me how we use those terms. Every school has something going for it, so in a way it's unfair to other schools that don't score highly on tests. Philosophically it's a dilemma, but I won't refuse the attention."

The other local schools in the top 50 were the California Academy of Math and Science in Carson (No. 21); and Animo Leadership Charter High in Inglewood, run by Green Dot Public Schools (No. 31).

Two Los Angeles Unified magnet schools placed in the top 100: the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies (No. 61) and Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High (No. 80).

Other local schools in the top 100 included University High in Irvine (No. 76), San Marino High (No. 82), Palos Verdes Peninsula High (No. 89), Palos Verdes High (No. 93), La Cañada High (No. 95) and Malibu High (No.98).

The rankings are based on standardized test scores and rates of participation and achievement in advanced placement courses. U.S. News said it also took into account the percentage of economically disadvantaged students at each school and the performance of black, Latino and poor students, rewarding schools in which those students performed at higher levels than their peers in other places.

U.S. News also publishes annual college rankings, which have been criticized for pushing colleges to skew their admissions policies to boost their rankings.

The board's 5-2 decision to hand control to Green Dot Public Schools in the fall of 2008 followed an impassioned debate among board members, supporters and opponents that lasted more than three hours.

"Today is about historic accountability," said Bruce Smith, an English teacher at Locke who gathered signatures for the Green Dot petition. "Finally a day of reckoning has come. . . . Real change is coming to Locke High School."

On another issue that has pitted the teachers union against district officials -- a new computerized payroll system beset for months with problems -- the board voted to bring in an outside firm to help fix the so-far intractable technical foul-ups. The one-year contract, for up to $10 million, is the latest move by district leaders desperate to end a debacle that has left thousands of teachers and other employees underpaid, overpaid or unpaid. This month, 3,826 teachers and other staff had paycheck problems, a total similar to last month's. Citing teacher distrust in the new system, district officials also said they have postponed a plan to recoup nearly $45 million in overpayments.

But it was the future of Locke that dominated the board's deliberations.

Locke ranks among the lowest-performing schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District and in the state. In 2005, 332 students graduated from a class that, as ninth-graders, had 1,318. Only 143 students qualified for admission to the University of California and California State University systems.

For years, the school has failed to meet state performance benchmarks, with most students posting scores of "below basic" or "far below basic" on standardized tests.

"I came to a point at which I said if we have to make a deal with the devil to change our situation, I'm ready to," said Arturo Ybarra, head of the Watts/Century Latino Organization, an area advocacy group, adding that he had taken his daughter out of Locke because he considered it unsafe. "Fortunately, we didn't have to deal with the devil to do that."

Opponents sounded as though they weren't so sure.

"It's probably the voucher in disguise," said board member Julie Korenstein, referring to the use of government-funded vouchers to pay for private schools. Charters are public schools run independently of school districts. They are free from some traditional constraints, including collective-bargaining agreements. Unlike most charters, Green Dot is unionized, although not by UTLA, which argues that it must be the union at Locke.

Green Dot founder Steve Barr implored the board to approve the charter petition.

"We have a crisis in the public education system," Barr said. "It's all of our faults, and we all have to pull together to fix this."

Green Dot founder Steve Barr and Randi Weingarten, president of the powerful New York City teachers union, have reached an unusual agreement to open a jointly run charter high school. The two are scheduled to announce the collaboration in a news conference at the union's Manhattan offices today.

The United Federation of Teachers' willingness to enter into an alliance with Green Dot seems certain to put pressure on United Teachers Los Angeles, which represents the roughly 35,000 teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Although in recent months UTLA President A. J. Duffy has softened his caustic and dismissive attacks on Green Dot — and charters in general — he has repeatedly rejected the idea of a partnership with Green Dot.

Weingarten, in a telephone interview Wednesday, said she hoped the deal between the nation's largest teacher union and Green Dot would encourage Duffy to move in a similar direction.

"If you really actually believe in kids and believe in their success, those of us in education, we really shouldn't be in the sandbox fighting with each other. We should be ... trying to figure out how to work together," Weingarten said.

Barr and Weingarten said the unusual collaboration should set an example, not only in Los Angeles, but elsewhere as well. Throughout the United States, charter schools are largely nonunion and, as such, have drawn the sharp ire of union leaders. Green Dot teachers, however, offer an exception, because they belong to a union, though not one representing educators in Los Angeles or New York.

Several weeks ago, Weingarten visited Green Dot schools in Los Angeles and met with Barr. The trip helped her decide to push ahead with the partnership, she said. Weingarten praised Green Dot's model, so far implemented only in the Los Angeles area, as one that has posted promising results while also giving teachers a considerable voice in making decisions on instruction and resources.

"When you go and see Green Dot schools, you see schools that really work for kids ... in places where kids have not always been given the best chances in life," she said. "Teachers are treated as the professionals they ought to be, and they step up to act as those professionals as well."

Under the terms of the proposal, which requires approval by New York state education officials, Barr, Weingarten and several New York education and civic figures would sit on a board of directors that oversees the school. The South Bronx campus is expected to open in fall 2008 and will primarily serve Latino students from low-income families.

Weingarten and Barr said they expected the school to operate much like the 10 high schools Green Dot runs in the Los Angeles area. Those schools are rooted in a set of basic tenets, including enrollment no greater than 500 students and a college-preparatory curriculum.

Although New York state regulations require that they wait until the charter is approved to work out details, Weingarten and Barr said they expect that the New York teachers will work under a labor agreement similar to the one Green Dot has with its teachers in Los Angeles.

Unlike the lengthy, proscriptive contract UTLA has negotiated with L.A. Unified that spells out a teacher's workday down to the minute and offers extensive job protections, Green Dot's contract is more straightforward. While giving teachers considerable authority and higher starting salaries, it calls for a "professional workday" and allows teachers to be fired for "just cause."

Conflict between UTLA and Green Dot has long been a barrier to serious discussions of partnership. Earlier in his first term as union president, faced with an explosion of charters in Los Angeles that ultimately drew hundreds of teachers away from district schools, Duffy hammered on the independent schools, questioning whether they produced better results and criticizing their labor practices. As the largest — and most aggressive — charter group, Green Dot was a frequent target. Earlier this year, Duffy charged that the group "takes bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, idealistic people and works them to death."

On Wednesday, he dismissed the notion that an agreement between the New York teachers union and Green Dot had relevance to Los Angeles, saying that "the landscapes are very different." He emphasized that his criticism of charters has been driven, in part, by the frantic growth of charter schools here. New York City has considerably fewer of them.

Weingarten "is doing what she thinks is best for public education in New York City," Duffy said.

But the partnership announcement comes at a particularly delicate time for him. As he prepares to mount a reelection bid, Duffy is under pressure to assuage rising discontent among teachers chafing at the slow pace of district improvements at middle and high schools.

Last month, that frustration spilled over when a core of tenured teachers at Locke High School voiced support for Green Dot's plan to take over the South Los Angeles campus and convert it into several small charters. Since then, teachers from more than a dozen other L.A. Unified schools have contacted Green Dot to discuss similar actions, Barr has said.

Duffy readily concedes that, against this backdrop, he has struck a decidedly less confrontational tone on charters, now saying he would be willing to negotiate with Green Dot if two-thirds of the teachers at a school called on him to do so.

"I am listening and responding to the needs of my members," he said.