READ THE LATEST REPORT on the Los Angeles Unified School District and weep. Then marvel that anyone manages to accomplish actual education in an organization so profoundly broken.
The review, commissioned by district Supt. David L. Brewer (and available at latimes.com/lausd-report), lays out a woeful scenario of policies never adopted, or adopted but never carried out, or carried out incompletely and confusingly. Progress is stymied by bureaucratic inertia, lackadaisical attitudes and, far too often, because people don't know what they're supposed to do.
A school board election May 15 could begin to transform the district's governance, if the two reform-minded candidates backed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa win. Or it could consign the schools to a few more years of same-old same-old.
The report, by Evergreen Solutions, makes the status quo unacceptable. Not that its findings are exceptionally new. The district has been studying itself for years, with similar results. But what the latest analysis details is how little progress district leaders have made on the recommended reforms. And few among the district staff worry about it because they're seldom held liable for their actions. The lack of consequences is such a far-reaching problem that the study mentions accountability 120 times in a 115-page report.