LOS ANGLES TIMES INTERVIEW : Jerome Porath : Looking at What Works--the City’s Catholic School System

Can the schools be saved? Worries about the quality of American education have put that question on the national agenda, and lately students of the subject have turned with increasing interest--perhaps even awe--to the Catholic schools.

While big-city school systems flounder, academics and parents invariably give the Catholic schools high marks. With scant resources and ideas that once seemed backward, Catholic schools are suddenly prime examples of the latest thinking about school-based management and empowered teachers.

The reason is their remarkable success. Even as the Los Angeles Unified School District struggles with violence, bureaucracy, teen-age pregnancy and talk of secession by the San Fernando Valley, the local Catholic schools quietly produce disciplined, educated graduates at a fraction of the cost per pupil. The difference is especially marked in tough inner-city neighborhoods, where the Catholic schools excel.

For the first time in history, a lay person has the job of making sure they keep it up. In September, 1991, a lean and low-key educator named Jerome R. Porath became the first person who wasn’t a priest to serve as superintendent of schools for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. It’s quite a job: with 286 schools, nearly 102,000 students and an annual budget of $235 million, Porath presides over a system about the size of Baltimore’s.

The 46-year-old Milwaukee native was previously superintendent of Catholic schools in Washington. He bears the enormous burden not just of maintaining educational standards, but keeping the Catholic schools of Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties solvent while meeting the demand for better schooling among inner-city parents without resources.

Porath works from a modest office in the modest building southeast of downtown that houses the headquarters of the archdiocesan schools, where he shares quarters with a personal computer and photographs of his five children.

Question: Why is it that the Catholic schools perform so well?

Answer: In my reading of the research, there appears to be two factors, and these would apply to any effective school. One is that our schools are focused on a very clear mission. Our elementary schools are very focused on getting kids into high schools and doing well with high schools, and our high schools are very focused on getting kids into college and doing well in college. We’re not out on all kinds of commercial education and electives and all the rest. Another finding is that effective schools have strong local leadership. We have to be that way. We have 20 people in our central office.

Q: Instead of nearly 2,000 at L.A. Unified, which is only six times as large. Many commentators have observed that the Catholic schools do a good job. Is there any proof?

A: We have not done here the systematic research that has been done by the professional educators. But our schools do participate in the national samples and surveys, and there’s no reason to believe that we don’t meet those profiles. . . . Comparing Catholic schools to education in general, including public as well as other forms of private education, the results are that, at every grade level and in every subject area, Catholic schools test higher than their counterparts. Now, Dan Akst is a columnist for The Times.

this is the research that’s been based on the National Education Longitudinal Study as well as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (both federal initiatives) and the studies that have been done at the University of Chicago by James Coleman and others.

Q: It’s also been said that expectations play a role.

A: High expectations. Our schools have always expected kids are going to learn. We have some tracking within the schools, but we don’t have such mammoth enrollments that we can take the bottom 20% and put them in one group, and the top 20% in another group. While we’re looking for individual differences in helping students, we still expect everybody’s going to learn.

Q: Regardless of their race, ethnicity or class.

A: That’s right. The other thing--and this is (his) most recent finding--(Coleman) talks about (is) what he calls the social capital that is generated when you have a community of people who share the same beliefs and values. It creates a kind of reinforcing community in which people work together, and that spills over for the young people and accounts for why we find that we have a much higher participation of parents in school activities.

Q: What role do the parents have?

A: Well, they do just about everything, depending upon the school. We have them come and volunteer sometimes for teacher aides, sometimes for playground monitors and so forth. They’re certainly involved in helping to raise money for the school. Increasingly, we are trying to get parents involved in the governance of the school to help us make decisions that are more reflective of what the desires of the community would be.

Q: Do you ask that they take an active role in their child’s education?

A: We do. But that becomes a very delicate balance today. In those areas where families have lots of resources--whether we ask them to provide an educational environment for their children or not--they’re going to do it. They have space at home where children can study. They have home computers. They have books and they read magazines. And newspapers and so forth, and they have time to spend with their children.

In the lower-income areas, frequently the family environment doesn’t have that. And so to create a curriculum that has a common expectation of what parents are going to do in support of it just is not realistic. We expect that parents are going to cooperate with the school. We expect that they are going to help to the extent that they can in ensuring that the students do their homework and participate in school activities. And that parents participate in activities and meetings and so forth.

Q: You talked about social capital. It’s ironic that it should arise from a community of values and produce a climate that attracts non-Catholics. What proportion of your students aren’t Catholic?

A: Our overall enrollment is 12% non-Catholic.

Q: But it’s even higher at the high school level.

A: At the high school level it is 19%. Most of the non-Catholic families whom I have had experience with over the years in Catholic education really value the environment. They want moral and spiritual values to be taught to their children. One of the real dilemmas our colleagues in public education face is that many times when they attempt to get involved in moral education, it has to be so noncommittal that it doesn’t offend anybody’s sense of values or beliefs.

Q: What are the main challenges facing you here in the archdiocesan schools?

A: First and foremost, to keep before us that we need to have the best possible education. And that becomes a problem when sometimes you can’t always find the personnel you want, when you don’t have all the dollars that you need, when facilities may be in need of repair, renovation or improvement, when technology expands and the requirements for a basic education simply enlarge because of those technological changes.

The second big challenge is trying to ensure that we can offer Catholic education that is affordable. For our middle- to upper-middle to upper-income families, the tuition that we charge is very reasonable. But when you’re dealing in East Los Angeles or South-Central Los Angeles, and the families are spending a greater percentage of their family budget on paying the tuition and coming up with fewer dollars than they are out in the San Fernando Valley, Pacific Palisades or Palos Verdes, and the parish communities are having trouble even paying for the basic church expenses, let alone try to help operate a school, it becomes a real problem. This is a real dilemma for us, because if you look at the results of the research, where Catholic schools are proving to be most effective and most beneficial is when they are working with low-income groups or working with minorities.

Q: Financially, how much is the shortfall?

A: With other grants and special programs, we’re in the neighborhood of $9 million to $10 million a year over and above what the parents are putting in, what they raise with their candy sales and their fiestas, and what the parishes contribute.

Q: Clearly, a lot of your problems come down to money.

A: Yes. The archdiocese has established an education foundation that set a goal of $100 million, and they’re raised $72 million so far. Four years ago, there was no tuition-assistance program out of the foundation. This year, it’s at $2.5 million. That’s from donations primarily from individuals, but some foundations and some corporations. But we need much more. Our enrollments in most places in the archdiocese are good. Where we have the most available seats are in the lower-income areas. And again it’s because the families can’t afford to pay the tuition, and we can’t afford to give out any more assistance. We estimate that we probably can take 5,000 new kids today. At roughly $2,000 per student, we’re looking at maybe $10 million a year.

Q: Just $2,000 per student? Los Angeles Unified spends $5,400, even excluding adult and special education. Do you have much bureaucracy? What proportion of your employees are teachers?

A: Good question. We’re probably 90% who are actually classroom teachers.

Q: How do you manage that? In L.A. Unified, the proportion is about half.

A: Well, let’s take some rough figures. The cost of operating this office here for our professional staff and everybody is probably in the neighborhood of $700,000 to $800,000 a year. That’s central administration. For 100,000-plus kids, we’re talking about $7 or $8 per student per year. Now, we’re looking at a total elementary school cost of maybe $1,600 per student, and a high school cost of about $2,600 per student. So most of that is classroom instruction. And we’re probably talking no more than one and a half administrators in the schools for every 300 students. We do have aides and cafeteria workers and so forth, but we also rely on volunteers there.

Q: Your teacher salaries are lower than in most public schools. What do you pay?

A: At the high school level, $24,000 to $25,000. That’s for somebody who’s got a master’s degree or California teaching credential. At the elementary level, probably about $3,000 less. Even after 20 years our teachers may be making in the mid-$30s.

Q: Do you have discipline problems? Violence? Drugs?

A: Let me say this. We don’t require students who come to our schools to prove themselves to be saints. My guess is that many of the students who are attending our schools may even be discipline problems in other environments. We have a very high expectation for behavior within the school. We base that expectation on a sense of self-esteem and self-worth. We believe that if young people feel good about themselves, they will begin to feel good about other people. They will respect each other and respect each other’s property, and good order and discipline will come.

Q: You also still require uniforms. Do you have any plans to change that?

A: No. At the high school level, some of the schools do not have uniforms as such, but they have dress codes. We have found that on just about every occasion that we have questioned parents about uniforms, they told us that they wanted it. One criticism of uniforms I’ve heard over the years is that it stifles individuality and creativity. The way we look at it, it creates kind of an equal footing for everybody. There are much better ways in which a school should encourage creativity and individuality than in attire. We want to get beyond the superficial barriers, look at everybody as having the same basic rights and opportunities, and then compete based upon what we can learn and what we can do and how we can help one another rather than whether we’re tall or short or black or white or brown or male or female.