NEWS ANALYSIS : Settlement Doesn’t Mean the Fight Is Over for Teachers : Education: Longtime animosity of union and school board is just one problem yet to be solved.

Although the Los Angeles Unified School District has sidestepped the possibility of a crippling strike, the decision by teachers to support a pact that cuts their pay 10% will not solve the school system’s most intractable problems--and may just create a host of new ones.

The settlement deal--crafted by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and approved Friday by a majority of the district’s 30,000 teachers--has forestalled a walkout that would have shut down 650 schools and cost the district millions in lost revenue.

But it leaves thousands of unhappy teachers, a district teetering on the brink of insolvency, and serious questions about the ability of the union and the school board to put aside longstanding animosities in order to work together to rescue the failing school system.

Had the district and its teachers not reached an accord, a strike certainly would have fueled a growing movement to dismantle the nation’s second-largest school system and would have boosted a campaign to provide parents with state-paid vouchers for private school tuition.

Still, there is no doubt that the settlement’s $79-million price tag will exacerbate existing budget problems in a district already facing a deficit of more than $100 million in the next school year.

The settlement proposes using restricted funds--including textbook and supply accounts controlled by local campuses--to restore some of the 12% cut from teacher salaries last fall. Parents and Sacramento lawmakers have unleashed criticism that may come back to haunt both administrators and teachers.

And the inability of the school board and the union to reach a settlement on their own has diminished confidence in a school system already perceived by a majority of the public as mismanaged, failing to educate its students and in dire need of reform or dismantling.

“In education, the two letters L A are . . . becoming a euphemism for tragedy in education,” said Adam Urbanski, a vice president of the national American Federation of Teachers. “The L.A. situation is the most pronounced and the most desperate around the country.”

By settling with its teachers and avoiding a strike, the district has salvaged some measure of short-term security. But the settlement does nothing for “the deeply rooted financial problems that put the district and the union at odds,” said Theodore Mitchell, dean of UCLA’s Graduate School of Education.

The two-year pact approved Friday cuts from 12% to 10% the size of the pay cut teachers, principals and 10,000 other district employees will receive this year. The reduction will be financed by shifting $31 million from the district’s state-mandated reserve for economic uncertainties and by winning permission from the state to set aside unused money from textbook and other accounts.

Critics say the pact only pushes the district’s financial problems into the future. Similar complaints were raised in 1989, when the school board granted teachers 24% raises over three years to halt a nine-day strike. That contract and a sudden downturn in state revenue paved the way for program and personnel cuts that have amounted to almost $1 billion in the three years.

“It’s sort of like if you are having trouble making it on your monthly payment at home and you decide to take the money you are saving for your kids’ college education and use it to make ends meet,” said Los Angeles County School Supt. Stuart Gothold, who reviews the budgets of all county school districts.

In the case of Los Angeles, the district may have seen no other way out, Gothold said. “They are in a very precarious position--morale is a factor; pressure to break up the district is a problem,” Gothold said.

Brown has defended the decision to allow use of the restricted school accounts, saying the district typically has enough leftover money in those accounts each year to cover the $36 million it will cost to make up the 2% pay-back.

But many parents have reacted angrily to the news that school supply funds--which pay for everything from field trips to textbooks to crayons and paper--have been frozen by the district until finance officials determine how much of it they will need.

“I’d be the first one to admit that the teachers are underpaid, but I feel like (the district) is sacrificing the children to avoid a strike,” said Kathie Bronstein, who has two children at Dixie Canyon Elementary in Sherman Oaks.

“What good does it do to have the schools open if they don’t have books to read? The teachers will be there, but big deal.”

Three years of budget cutbacks and the running feud between the district’s top administrators and the teachers have tried the patience of many families.

“I know so many people who are just getting out; they’re just tired of it,” Bronstein said. “It’s a constant battle, but we never seem to recover anything. We just seem to go deeper and deeper in the hole.”

And although the contract settlement means that teachers will not strike this year, it does little to improve morale in a group that has seen two years of salary reductions while coping with bigger classes, scarcer supplies and fewer prospects for improvement over the short term.

“There’s going to be a hemorrhaging of people in this district. Any teacher who can get out will get out,” said Eric Nelson, who has taught fourth grade at Hooper Elementary in South-Central Los Angeles for 10 years.

Given the poor working conditions and possibility of future pay cuts, chances are slim that the district can attract top-flight replacements for teachers who leave, Rochester’s Urbanski said.

The contract won by the union four years ago made Los Angeles teachers the nation’s most highly paid. Now, they are the only teachers in the country being asked to take such deep pay cuts.

The turnabout has led some to question the role and future of United Teachers-Los Angeles.

“There are teachers at my school who feel the union may be dead,” said Sally Roderick, an English teacher at Sylmar High School. “I don’t feel that way. . . . But other teachers feel the union was disemboweled by the 3% pay cut (a year ago), and we’ve gone downhill since then.”

Across the nation, the Los Angeles district and its teachers union have been considered leaders in raising the level of professionalism in the classroom, Urbanski said.

Now, he said, “it is quite depressing to watch what is happening. Every union leader in this country who wants to sell a contract . . . cites Los Angeles and says, ‘We could do worse.’ And every teacher fears that what is happening in Los Angeles will set a trend nationwide.”

But Urbanski blames the problems not on the union but on the low level of education funding in California, which spends approximately $4,100 per student--almost $1,000 per student less than the national average.

“Should the union take the blame for the neglect of children in the state of California? People who are saying the union sold out or the union is dead . . . fail to recognize the realities,” Urbanski said.

UTLA president Helen Bernstein said she understands the anger and frustration of her members, “but this union has got to protect a tremendous amount of things. It’s not just about salaries . . . we’ve got vouchers to worry about and the breakup.”

But protecting the school system will require the union to forge alliances with business and political leaders and somehow settle its war with district leaders.

“The fact that the school board supported the offer 6 to 0 and the teachers went over 65% (in support) is the best indication there’s clearly a desire for the two sides to reach accord,” Brown said Friday. “That’s a profound statement that both sides are prepared to sacrifice to bring peace and stability to this district.”

Times education writer Stephanie Chavez contributed to this story.