I think that this is true, generally, that the LAUSD school boards have been pretty poor. However, this is not true of Romer. He really has gotten test scores up, not only absolutely but in comparison to the rest of California.
California uses a metric called the "Similar Schools" rankings, where schools are placed in pools that are demographically similar - i.e., similar % non-English speaking, % lower-performing ethnic, % free lunch, etc.
If you want detals of how this is done, ask.
This is a 1-10 scale. Since Romer came in the average LAUSD school has gone from a 5 (slightly below average) to about a 7 (pretty good). Thats an incredible thing to do for such a large district. And this is in comparison to all of California, its not a matter of artificially inflated scores.
And Romer had to fight the same teachers unions that run the school board in order to do this, as there was great opposition to his methods, which involve structured curriculums and top-down management of teachers. Its kind of rich that they come to him to save them now.