Reformer Praises LAUSD Teachers : Schools: Educator Adam Urbanski says changes must be made to better meet the needs of students.

Restructuring Los Angeles city schools, says national education reform guru Adam Urbanski, is a lot like pulling teeth. Impacted teeth, that is.

But that doesn’t mean teachers and administrators should be unwilling to try. In a speech that partly preached to the choir, Urbanski, the president of the Rochester teachers union and vice president of the American Federation of Teachers, told more than 1,000 San Fernando Valley teachers, administrators and parents Monday that schools must be revamped to meet the demands of students.

“Status quo is just a euphemism for the mess we’re in,” Urbanski said, speaking at Shepherd of the Hills Church in Chatsworth. “You simply cannot accept this condition . . . Change is real hard and takes some time. There is pain.”

Standards for teaching, as well as learning, must be set, schools must be made safer, and power must be shared among all employees and parents--to name just a few of the guiding principles in the reform world according to Urbanski.

“The problem with today’s schools is not that they aren’t as good as they were before, but that they are precisely as they always were,” Urbanski said. “Radical problems demand radical solutions.”

In Los Angeles, the problems are particularly difficult--due in part to low per-pupil funding and high numbers of poor, immigrant students, Urbanski said.

But even faced with pay cuts and the largest class sizes in the nation, Los Angeles teachers should be commended for taking on the reform task. About 200 city schools are participating in the district’s LEARN reform program, in which campuses are given greater decision-making power.

Urbanski praised the Los Angeles teachers union for spearheading reform efforts in the face of great obstacles. In Rochester, he said, teachers agreed to undertake school restructuring--but only after they won a three-year contract granting 53% raises.

“I’m a huge admirer of teachers in L.A. who don’t back away from the needs of the kids . . . even when it would seem to be easier to do so,” Urbanski said.

United Teachers-Los Angeles President Helen Bernstein, who considers Urbanski her mentor, said Urbanski’s message inspires teachers.

“Teachers are so impressed that a district-sponsored event would showcase a union president,” she said. In fact, some schools were let out early so teachers could attend.

Indeed, teachers warmly received Urbanski’s comments. “I don’t think change is painful, I think resisting change is painful,” said Kerry Harr, a fourth-grade teacher from Pomelo Drive Elementary School in Canoga Park. “We all need to do what we can for our students . . . If standing on my head would help them learn, I would do it.”