Wasting Our Future? : The causes of our public schools’ problems are hotly disputed by those responsible for finding a cure. : POINT... : A bureaucracy removed from the schools is spending much of its budget on administration. Students go without.

Our schools are in deep trouble; our kids are not receiving the education they need. Seventy percent of our high-school graduates cannot read, write or compute math on the eighth-grade level. The dropout rate is about 40%. What is wrong?

The Los Angeles Unified School District is under-funded, with about $4,500 a year from state, federal and local sources for each student. In contrast, New York provides $7,000 a year for each student.

The little money that is available is spent unwisely and improperly. The district’s 1988-89 budget was $3.5 billion. Almost 28% of that budget--$969,977,000--was spent running the administrative offices at the region level and at headquarters downtown. At the same time, the district spent only $83,766,000 on textbooks and supplies for almost 600,000 kids. Thousands of kids have no textbooks to take home. Schools are forced to buy equipment, such as computers, from the district at higher prices than they would pay at retail stores.

The district continues to provide chauffeur services for the superintendent at a cost in excess of $100,000 a year and free cars to upper-echelon administrators, 55 of whom are paid $100,000 to $164,000 per year, another 27 between $90,000 and $99,900.

Inflated administrative expenses force cuts in the actual educational process. Average class size is about 36 students per teacher, and the district plans to increase class size next year. Such large classes make learning difficult for the best students and deny lower-ability students the individual attention they need. Yet, there is one expensive administrator for every 11.6 teachers.

Most schools have severe shortages of books and other necessities like paper, maps and lab supplies. Large class size, year-round schools with no air conditioning during the hot months and shortages of necessary tools cripple the learning process.

Very simply, classrooms are being starved by a bureaucracy that doesn’t seem to understand that taxpayer dollars must be spent directly on the students.

Add to this the sad fact that of the 611 students caught last year with deadly weapons on our school campuses, only 15 were expelled. The district is not even providing safe schools, let alone a quality education program.

What must be done to make a major turnaround? The problem is complex, but the solution is simple: The district must change its priorities to put the classroom first in claims on the budget and in decision-making power.

The district must be held to a budget that allocates at least 70% of funds directly for children’s educational needs. Administrative costs should never exceed 15% of the total budget. Major cuts must be made in administrative overhead. The eight region offices, which just expensively duplicate functions at the central administrative offices at 450 N. Grand Ave., should be closed. The district should cut 35% to 40% from the $377,098,000 in salaries at the downtown, region and division offices. Similar cuts should be made wherever highly paid functionaries absorb money that could go to classrooms. Even without additional funds from the state, these saved dollars could set the stage for big advances in education.

Teachers must be allowed to use their creativity and knowledge of special needs in their classrooms. At present, district bureaucrats remote from the classroom dictate what, when, where and how to teach. That is the main reason 50% of all new teachers quit within five years.

School-based management must be allowed to take root and grow. Parents, teachers and principals must have authority to develop curriculum and make all decisions affecting their school from bell schedules to what will be taught and who will be hired. Schools and classrooms should be tailored to suit the children in them. Obviously, schools must observe the laws and basic board policy, but other constraints are counterproductive. To implement their plans, schools must have the maximum funds available to buy textbooks and other equipment for use directly in the children’s education, free of the stranglehold used by the district bureaucracy to impede local school decisions.

Improving the school district boils down to a clear and possible proposition: Schools must be restructured, with students and the classroom becoming the top budget priority. When that change is made, more than 30,000 dedicated, professional teachers, nurses, librarians, psychologists and others, working with caring parents and principals, will be able to give Los Angeles’ students the education they need and deserve.