City Schools Need Corrective Surgery

With each headline comes a sinking, sickening feeling that efforts to reform the Los Angeles Unified School District may be hopeless.

It is true that many of the problems facing LAUSD have plagued other school districts in California and elsewhere in the country. But the fact remains that on those matters almost wholly within the power of the LAUSD administration to correct, it has made very little improvement.

There is no complex sociological or demographic reason for mismanagement of the school district’s physical resources. Often-cited reasons for problems, such as “we have too many students from poor families” or “the teachers’ union is too powerful,” do not explain textbook inventory problems, commingling of funds, contractor abuses, delays in implementing new programs, missed funding opportunities and waste of public funds. Outside of student test scores, most of the critical stories found in the daily newspapers have little, if anything, to do with the students or the teachers. Instead, they have everything to do with the quality of the management in the LAUSD.

What then can be done about it?

When Los Angeles City Controller Rick Tuttle appointed me as his representative on the Proposition BB oversight committee, I was like most people, a parent who followed the news but had no inside information. I believed the district’s problems were probably exaggerated. After a little more than a year on the inside, I have reversed my opinion.

But before I join those who have given up, I believe there are some simple, relatively quick steps that can be taken to start the hard work of fixing LAUSD’s management.

* The LAUSD should create an office of inspector general immediately. This office must have the independence and resources to conduct such investigations as may be necessary and the assurance that its findings will be promptly acted on. District board members, state legislators and even the superintendent of LAUSD have supported such a plan. The LAUSD board has finally scheduled action on this proposal on Tuesday.

* The superintendent and board need to set an example with its administrative staff, those who are the highest paid and have the most responsibility over this $6-billion-a-year enterprise. Efforts to bring in an outside “business czar” failed for reasons unknown to those outside the inner circle of district management, but if the new senior administrators cannot bring an end to incompetence, corruption and mismanagement, then they too should be replaced.

Remember that we are talking about a very big district with more than 110,000 full- and part-time employees, more than 700 square miles of geography and roughly 900 schools and centers. In any organization this large, there are bound to be problems that need fixing. What the public needs to know is that there are standards to meet, penalties for noncompliance and corrective actions when problems are found. There is no such confidence today.

* While the jury is still out on whether LAUSD can be made to work administratively, one additional proposal should be tried. Next spring, a proposal will be on the ballot to reform the Los Angeles City Charter. One of the issues being considered as part of reform is raising the pay of LAUSD board members, which is currently set by state law at $24,000 per year. The City Charter could be amended to raise it. Current proposals range from “no change” to increasing the salary to that of a full-time teacher.

An alternative approach would be to use the salary issue as a way for the voters to demand corrective action at LAUSD. Let’s place a high premium on being a board member and set a fairly high salary for the job, say equal to that of a Superior Court judge. But equally important, add a sunset clause requiring the voters to reaffirm the new salary in six years, and unless they did, the salary would revert to $24,000. This would do two things: open up the critical job of school board member to those persons who currently have a full-time demanding job, and give all board members an incentive to perform, because to do otherwise would slash their pay.

This is only a short list of actions that can be taken now to begin the longer, more painful process of corrective surgery within LAUSD administrative branches. For those who prefer inaction, consider following sober thought: If you don’t take action now, someone else will. The public’s patience has all but expired.