Education people on the list -- is this a good thing?  Given these stats, is the solution to add more requirements, or help the kids meet the requirements they already have? d

LAUSD adopts new standards
College-prep classes to be required
By Naush Boghossian, Staff Writer
The Los Angeles Unified School District board on Tuesday approved a controversial plan to toughen graduation requirements -- a plan which requires all students to complete college-prep curriculum in order to get a diploma.

Amid hundreds of students wearing T-shirts that read "Let me choose my future," and chanting "Give us life prep, not a life sentence," outside the building, the board voted 6 to 1 to approve instituting the so-called "A-G" curriculum -- a series of 15 classes in English, math, science, foreign language and social studies.

Board member Marguerite LaMotte was the sole dissenter.
Jose Huizar, who championed the curriculum requirement, called it a profound high school reform that would have implications throughout the district, lifting it out of "perpetual mediocrity."

"This is one of the most significant reforms this district is embarking on in the last 20 years. The payoffs will be huge, the impacts will be huge," Huizar said after the vote. "Really what this is about is providing thousands of students an opportunity to attend college -- an opportunity denied to them with the current policies and practices."

The passage of the reform is a political win for Huizar, who announced his plans on May 25 to run for the Los Angeles City Council.

The A-G curriculum will be available to all students who request it in the 2006-07 school year, and it will be implemented slowly after that. By 2012, it will be mandatory for all students.

The University of California and the California State University systems require applicants to complete two years each of history/social studies, laboratory science, foreign language; three years of math; four years of English; one year of visual or performing arts; and one year of a college-preparatory elective.

LAUSD already requires most of these A-G courses to graduate with the exception of Algebra II and two years of foreign language.

Board members approved the policy after hours of discussion and expressing great reservation about whether the district has the resources to execute the requirement.

"I hope we don't create a greater dropout rate for L.A. Unified. I would strongly advise the board that if we find that students are being harmed, that there will be some means of taking corrective action," board member Julie Korenstein said. "For all of your sake and our sake here, I hope that a mistake has not been made."

The district has not yet determined the cost of implementing the requirement or how many additional teachers would need to be hired.

LaMotte urged her colleagues not to rush into a decision and questioned whether the district had the infrastructure in place to meet the basic academic needs.

"I think we need access to these higher-level courses, but I don't think we need to put any more barriers in the way of these students," said LaMotte, who represents south Los Angeles schools.

Some teachers urged the board not to approve the plan, as many LAUSD students are not meeting basic academic requirements. From LAUSD's class of 2003, only 36 percent of Latinos, 45 percent of African-Americans, and 52 percent of white students completed the college-prep A-G classes. The district has a high school dropout rate of 50 percent.

"Students are failing classes. Students are dropping out. We need help. We don't need more classes," said Daniel Somoano, a teacher at Bell High School.

Naush Boghossian, (818) 546-3306 naush.boghossian@dailynews.com