School Board Votes to Retain Thompson for Two More Years

The Los Angeles Unified Board of Education voted Thursday to retain the district’s top administrator for two more years, but not without some consternation over the pace of education reform and the low level he has set for student test score gains.

Supt. Sid Thompson had been awarded a three-year contract last year, but that agreement allowed the board to cancel the contract if it felt Thompson had not begun to meet a series of ambitious goals, from improving student achievement to strengthening bilingual education.

“I take the acceptance of a two-year contract as . . . ‘Yes, you’re on the right track,’ ” Thompson said. “Now it’s time to look beyond incremental and talk about changing the whole system.”

Thompson, 64, was promoted to superintendent in 1992 after a 30-year career as a Los Angeles teacher, principal and administrator. His contract calls for him to make $141,000 a year until 1997, even if he had been fired.

On Thursday, board members praised his success at dividing the district’s 650 schools into local groupings known as clusters, but said they want him to concentrate on granting all schools autonomy through the LEARN school reform program.

Nearly a third of the district’s schools are part of the reform program, but an outside review found that the administration had not worked hard enough to give those schools full control of their budgets.

The vote in Thompson’s favor was 6 to 0, with only Julie Korenstein abstaining. Korenstein said she acted primarily out of deference to the two newly elected board members, who do not take office until Saturday, who she felt should have been involved in the performance review.