Old Ways Threaten Schools

Elementary students in Los Angeles public schools are getting a better education today than they were five years ago. It’s a simple statement, but not one that could have been written for most of the last few decades. Test scores are rising, a strong reading program is well established and math teaching is being strengthened. The district still has very far to go, especially in its struggling upper grades. It is also at a crossroads.

Budget cuts forced by the loss of state funding are stirring up old tensions over money, jobs and power. If the district is to keep improving, its power centers -- unions, the school board and the superintendent -- need to put their fighting instincts in check and keep the focus on students’ needs.

The fate of the 11 subdistricts that manage the huge district’s 800 schools is what’s at issue. Teachers union leaders want more administrative blood spilled in a final round of cuts, and the school board -- dominated by union-backed members -- seems ready to oblige. The board has ordered Supt. Roy Romer to take an ax, not a scalpel, to the local districts, a system that Romer credits for rising test scores but that the union says demoralizes teachers.

The local districts, with superintendents who earn more than $150,000 and mushrooming administrative staffs, suck up money that could be used to cushion cuts that have reduced counselors, nurses and social workers and forced teachers and principals to spring for pencils, chalk and toilet paper, says United Teachers-Los Angeles President John Perez. “No teacher, no school secretary, no bus driver

But Romer argues that student achievement has begun to creep up only because of the tight supervision provided by local district staffers, who visit classrooms, coach teachers and ensure that standardized lesson plans are followed. Academic gains have come “because we forced them,” Romer says.

Perez considers that “command and control” system an insult. The union wants to end classroom inspections and “demoralizing” audits of failing schools. That might return power to teachers, but it’s hard to see how it would lift student achievement. Leaving it to teachers and individual schools to run the nation’s second-largest system has been tried and failed.

Still, it’s time for Romer to accept that cuts in the district’s top-heavy structure are inevitable. The local districts that work best succeed because of talented leaders who inspire teachers, principals and parents to work together and fit reforms to student needs. Those leaders could be just as effective in a less expensive structure; the others ought to be eased out. A new structure could focus more attention on the district’s biggest challenge -- its failing middle and high schools.

Parents and other taxpayers have had a taste of a district where educational needs, not merely politics or job patronage, help drive the decision-making. They won’t stand long for backsliding.