L.A. flunks science

A NEW COMPARISON of science education in big cities reveals distressing but unsurprising news: Among 10 urban school districts nationwide, Los Angeles is in the basement.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, considered the gold-standard test for the nation’s schools, L.A. fourth-graders tied for last place with Chicago. Its eighth-graders were second to last, a notch above Atlanta. Overall, L.A. placed last.

Meanwhile, according to the NAEP, California is among the few states that have improved science scores over the last five years. The figures represent the first time the NAEP has tested individual urban districts on science, though it regularly measures their progress in reading and math.

School officials can’t hide behind demographics on this one. The district does have a high percentage of Latino and African American students who generally score lower on standardized tests. But all the urban districts have sizable numbers of minority students. And L.A.’s black and Latino students generally scored lower than black and Latino students in other districts.

Because good education starts with good instruction -- a truth too commonly lost in the school reform debate -- the top priority is hiring more fully qualified science teachers. That’s admittedly a difficult task. Science teachers are at a premium, with too many school districts vying for too few teachers. An urban school district such as Los Angeles, with its low-scoring students, is at a recruiting disadvantage.

The district’s administration -- and, more important, the teachers union -- should realize by now that half-measures don’t work. The solution is simple: Pay top science teachers more. That is anathema, of course, to United Teachers Los Angeles, which insists that the schools pay teachers according to how long they’ve stayed in the same job rather than how well they’re doing or how badly their particular skills are needed.

The district’s performance reflects as badly on its teachers as on its students. Ultimately, it’s in the union’s interests to change its outmoded ways to accommodate unpleasant realities.