EXPECTING MORE, GETTING MORE:

Subtle signs of a turnaround on a troubled L.A. campus: Green Dot faced much skepticism when it took over Locke High last year. There's still a long way to go, but most students say they're safer and are learning more. (Howard Blume, June 24, 2009, LA Times)

For years, Locke, on the edge of Watts, has had among the state's lowest test scores and highest dropout rates. In 2004, 1,451 students enrolled as freshmen; just 261 graduated four years later. Of them, only 85 had completed the courses required to apply to a University of California or California State University school.

A year ago, Green Dot Public Schools, which runs 12 charters serving the city's urban poor, took over the school. The effort to transform Locke has been a nationally watched test of whether such a large, deeply impoverished urban high school could be transformed by a charter operator. Charter schools are publicly funded but operate beyond the direct control of school districts, exempt from many regulations and union contracts.

Locke, which holds its graduation today, remains a troubled school, and Green Dot's strategy has relied on extra funds that may not be sustainable or readily replicable.

But despite those caveats, a qualified turnaround appears to be emerging.

Students say the campus is safer and calmer. The teachers, although mostly young and inexperienced, receive praise for being devoted and effective. There are signs of academic progress. Students repeat one point over and over: Instruction is better and nearly all teachers work hard and expect them to achieve.