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Supt. David L. Brewer has not done much to inspire confidence in his year at the top of the Los Angeles Unified School District, but one initiative that seemed to convey an appreciation for the district’s urgent need to think differently was his plan to declare 44 secondary schools a “transformation district� and lavish them with resources. Appropriately, he chose the city’s lowest-performing schools and touted his proposal as part of a larger vision for desperately needed improvement districtwide.

Politically, the proposal was L.A. Unified’s answer to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s high-gloss Partnership for Los Angeles Schools and a check on the charter school behemoth, which is snapping up students right and left. Perhaps most important, Brewer’s plan was offered as evidence that he and the district understood the demand for immediate and radical action and for an end to union blockades on reform.

That was last month. Now the superintendent acknowledges that he’s hit obstacles -- notably, the teachers union -- and needs to rethink elements of the proposal. And so early optimism gives way to disappointment. If the past is prologue, the next chapter is stasis, and the story ends with the sacrifice of more children’s futures.

Brewer’s nonnegotiable points include curriculum and instruction: All of the schools that remain in the mini-district -- and it’s unclear how many that will be -- must have uniform curricula and teaching methods, he maintains. Those points are deal-breakers for the union, along with merit pay for teachers and principals in low-performing schools. But why must they be? Just last month, New York City’s United Federation of Teachers agreed to a school-based merit-pay system praised by the union president as “transcendent for the city.�

Los Angeles teachers want more local control and more autonomy, not less, says United Teachers of Los Angeles President A.J. Duffy. Stripping away creativity in the classroom won’t improve matters. Fair enough, but can’t those goals be reconciled with tough district standards and merit pay? Duffy says no, but parents and children have a right to expect more than obstinacy.

Brewer has 11 days before he’s scheduled to present his proposal to the school board. There are changes that he and the board can make regardless of union opposition, and there are some that he can’t. The union should meet him halfway, and both sides should spend these days productively. If they fail, the victims will be students and families who have waited far too long for them to succeed.