Report on School Administrators

I agree with State Controller Gray Davis’ report that California public schools have too many administrators (Part I, July 13). Having worked in many public and private schools, my honest opinion is that some administrators don’t even administrate, much less teach or get involved in the real process of educating young people.

The number of administrators vis-a-vis the total student enrollment is not as important as making sure that each administrator is necessary and useful for the success of the school’s programs. Assistant principals shouldn’t be required to do the principal’s job when the principal is at a meaningless meeting or out of town on so-called school business.

I presently work at Brentwood School, a private junior-senior high school in West Los Angeles. We have five major administrators for a school of 50 teachers and 480 total students. If our enrollment should double, it is hard for me to see why we would need more than one headmaster or a flock of deans of students.

In public schools where salaries are often jacked up by employee unions and seniority benefits, you can often find administrators making double or near triple the salary of a beginning teacher. Do parents really think that some person who sits in an office and pushes paper all day is vitally more crucial to their child’s education than the teacher who deals with the kid every day of the school week?

BARRY KRAUSE

Santa Monica