Wasting Our Future? : The causes of our public schools’ problems are hotly disputed by those responsible for finding a cure. : POINT... : We’re working to overcome tough problems, including a tide of immigrants. But administrative cost is a phony issue.

Los Angeles is now the nation’s new Ellis Island: 40% of all current immigrants enter the United States through here and stay to make the city their home. Project this situation onto the Los Angeles Unified School District.

There are roughly 610,000 students in the district today; enrollment jumped by 15,000 last year alone. This rate of expansion has made the Los Angeles district the second-largest in the United States--and it continues to grow. Ten years ago, the student population was 546,000.

Currently, 85.4% of the district’s students are members of ethnic minorities. Many are recent immigrants. Thirty-one percent, representing 83 different languages, are not fluent in English.

Faced with this language barrier, the district developed a master plan for the education of students limited in English proficiency. It encompasses programs aimed at meeting the instructional needs of the district’s diverse student population. The plan has become the model for other California school districts.

When I joined the Los Angeles Unified School District as its superintendent nearly three years ago, I arrived from Miami with a basic philosophy of public education. My ideas are the product of 35 years as a teacher and school administrator. Chief among them are sincere beliefs that:

--All students deserve the best schooling we can make available to them.

--All students can learn and should be given an opportunity to do so, even though students’ individual rates of learning may differ.

--School organization and operation should be a matter of school-based management at the local level, a process involving teachers, parents and administrators.

--Teachers and principals should not only be paid well; their schools also should have a professional and secure atmosphere geared toward increasing student achievement.

--In order to meet these challenges, a continuing search for funding sources must be a major priority.

To achieve these goals, the district has implemented a number of programs. In overcrowded areas, it has added bungalows and expanded school sites to satisfy a court integration order that no class may have more than 27 students. It has instituted double- and staggered-day schedules and shifted to year-round operation to make the most efficient use of school facilities. Where necessary, students are transported from overcrowded schools to less-congested ones.

Today, the district has 837 schools and centers, including magnet schools, skill centers and opportunity schools to satisfy special student needs. Leadership councils have been established at local schools. By bringing together teachers, parents and administrators, the councils foster the development of the best policies to serve local school needs. This mechanism is a special priority of mine; I hope to see it expanded as the district moves toward greater self-governance.

Salaries for district teachers now properly rank among the highest in the nation. Those who accept added responsibilities and assignments should receive additional compensation. In short, teachers should be able to achieve financial security without having to leave the classroom.

All these positive changes have been costly. The district’s 1990-91 budget is $3.8 billion, with an expected shortfall of $210 million. Some have charged that this budget reflects an overadministered district. But the ratio of administrator to student in the Los Angeles district is smaller than that in the state’s 20 largest districts. Here, the ratio is one administrator per 305 students; in a Northern California district, it is one for every 134. Furthermore, of 42 unified school districts in Los Angeles County, the most recently available data show that 40 of them spend more money proportionately on administration than we do.

To ensure that the Los Angeles Unified School District continues to operate efficiently, we established a volunteer committee of 12 to 15 of the city’s top business and financial leaders who assist us in resolving current and future budget difficulties.

The June ballot will include Proposition 123, a state measure authorizing $800 million in school-construction bonds. Its passage would provide the Los Angeles Unified School District with $120 million to $140 million in desperately needed additional funding.

Good things are happening in the district. But much remains to be done. It can best be accomplished if parents, administrators and teachers cooperate in an honest and open-to-the-public atmosphere for the good of all students.