COLUMN RIGHT/ JANET BEALES : Our Schools Can Do More With Less : Private-sector programs show what can be done to relieve the burden on public programs.

By all accounts, the Los Angeles Unified School District appears caught between a rock and a hard place. Unless cuts in teachers’ salaries are restored, the union will strike. If forced to issue full paychecks to 35,000 teachers as ordered by the Superior Court earlier this month, the district says it will go bankrupt.

That doesn’t have to be bad news for the district’s 640,000 students. Necessity is, after all, the mother of invention. Pressure to economize on spending has led districts in other states to develop some creative approaches to public education in partnership with the private sector.

Ombudsman Educational Services, for example, is a private firm that provides education programs for nearly 2,000 students at risk of dropping out in Arizona, Illinois and Minnesota. Students are instructed by state-certified teachers with pupil-teacher ratios no greater than 10 to 1. Typically, the classrooms are located in commercial spaces, such as shopping centers or office buildings. Tuition at Ombudsman is $3,000 to $4,000 and is paid for by school districts or on a private-tuition basis. That is well below the $7,200 that districts in those states spend on average to educate each high-risk youth in the public schools. Moreover, Ombudsman boasts a retention rate of 85% to 90%. The success rate of its public-school counterparts in those states is much lower, around 70%.

In Milwaukee, the public schools are considering contracting out a very different kind of instruction--science courses. The nonprofit Wisconsin Institute of Science and Technology would provide a touring mobile-science laboratory with equipment valued at more than $350,000, to elementary and junior high classes. WIST would also supply mentors to assist the regular classroom teacher with curriculum and equipment, teacher training and summer workshops. The cost of the program, $6,250 per school if eight schools participate, is well below the cost of a full-time science teacher and exposes children to an academic discipline many would otherwise have to forgo.

A third approach to stretching school dollars is the concept of work-site schools. For the past five years, Florida’s Dade County has worked with businesses to establish and operate public elementary schools, called Satellite Learning Centers, on business property. In Dade County alone, the SLCs enroll 275 students who are children of the business’ employees. Typically, the business provides the land and building for the classrooms, utilities, maintenance and security. The school district provides the teachers, curriculum, supplies and administration.

In 1990, Dade County, which faced serious overcrowding problems, estimated it had saved nearly $2 million in construction costs alone with the SLCs. The businesses have reported lower turnover and absenteeism and increases in employee satisfaction among “parent employees.” The businesses, including an insurance company, an airport, a community college and a hospital, say that the SLCs are an important tool for employee recruitment and retainment.

Furthermore, the 20,000-member teacher’s union, United Teachers of Dade County, fully supports the program. Each SLC is headed by a lead teacher who is responsible for the on-site management of the school as well as her regular teaching assignment. The lead teachers The success of the program--for teachers, children, parents, districts and businesses--has prompted Dade County to seek more private-sector partners to expand the SLCs.

The approach is being adopted by other states. In California, Hewlett Packard, in partnership with the Santa Rosa city school district, plans to open the West Coast’s first such school early next year. Given enrollment projections averaging more than 200,000 new students annually between now and the year 2000, California schools could certainly use the space.

These partnerships between the public and private sector show that more can be done with less. With a little ingenuity and a willingness to break from bureaucratic routines, California schools can prosper.

In Los Angeles, it’s time for district administrators and the teachers’ union to stop playing politics and get to work on the real agenda of our public schools: educating children.