Drawing on a four-year study of the last 40 years of education reform in Los Angeles, "Learning from L.A." captures the sweeping change in American education. It puts forth a provocative argument: while school reformers and education historians have tended to focus on the success or failure of individual initiatives, they have overlooked the fact that, over the past several decades, the institution of public education itself has been transformed. The following chapters are contained in this book: (1) The Progressives: Founding an Institution; (2) Withdrawing Legitimacy: The First Step in Transformation; (3) Exit and "Entrada": Demographic Change and Political Uncertainty; (4) Hollowing Out: The Demise of Local Control; (5) New Ideas: Stability in the Face of Turbulence; (6) LEARN: Auditions of Large-Scale Change; (7) LAAMP: Enter Walter Annenberg; (8) Implementation: Excitement and Challenge in the Schools; (9) Permanent Crisis: A "Failing School District"; (10) Charter Schools: A Parallel and Converging Universe; (11) Beyond Crisis: Structuring Politics for a New Institution; and (12) Five Policy Levers: What We Learned from L.A. An index is included.