A veteran school reformer will be named today to head Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's Partnership for L.A. Schools leadership team, overseeing six of the city's lowest performing schools, according to the Mayor's Office.
Angela Bass, who will be named superintendent of instruction, was with the San Diego Unified School District for the past nine years, where she helped "to lead one of the most dynamic and successful school reform efforts in the nation," according to a statement from the Mayor's Office.
Under Bass, student achievement in San Diego Unified accelerated at a faster rate, according to state and federal accountability measures.
She also implemented a district-wide mathematics program in 2003 that improved math scores and increased the number of students to proficient and advance levels by about 8 percent a year.
Villaraigosa will also name Marshall Tuck as the chief executive officer of the partnership and Mark Kleger-Heine as chief operating officer.
Rounding out the partnership team will be Family of Schools Leader Staci Monreal, Instructional Support Manager Raquel Nunez and School Support Services Manager Erica Balakian.
At a news conference this morning at Samuel Gompers Middle School, Villaraigosa will also outline the work already being done at each of the six schools to prepare them for joining the partnership this July, including four initiatives:
-- Transition teams are being formed at each school to build the infrastructure and management systems needed to transition from schools run by a central bureaucracy to autonomous schools run by the individual school community;
-- a data profile of each school with detailed statistics including math and English scores, achievement test scores, achievement gap data and attendance rates will allow the partnership to develop goals and strategies for school improvement;
-- student achievement plans will provide a detailed description of how each school will achieve its goals and how each school's strategies will be changed working with the Partnership; and
-- school surveys are being conducted to determine the schools' immediate needs and define short-term priorities.
Two months ago, teachers and parents at Roosevelt and Santee high schools and Hollenbeck, Stevenson, Gompers and Markham middle schools voted to join the Partnership for L.A. Schools.
The partnership was created by the mayor when his effort to take over Los Angeles Unified stalled in the courts. The five-year experiment is intended to give parents and teachers more input on budgetary and curriculum decisions, and could be expanded if it is successful.
The partnership is meant to improve student performance by giving teachers, parents and students a bigger voice in setting educational priorities.
Last week, the six schools received $100,000 worth of computers, printers, televisions and MP3 players from L.A. Shares, a nonprofit group that receives new and used equipment from local businesses and redistributes the items to Los Angeles County schools.
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