Everybody knows what happened to educational reform in the Los Angeles Unified School District. As former mayor Richard Riordan once told the author, "That's simple; LEARN failed." Indeed, the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Reform Now, which in the 1990s created a massive civic reform coalition, fell far short of building a district of semi-autonomous schools. When looked at as a project, it is easy to come to the conclusion that reform failed. The author and his colleagues' research leads them to a different conclusion: that LEARN and other reforms were "part of a much larger change in the entire institution of public education." This issue of the "Claremont Education Letter" focuses on education reform in Los Angeles and its lessons for everyone.