District May Delay Reform of Promotions

Los Angeles Unified may have to scale back its ambitious program to end social promotion, one of the first hard choices superintendent-to-be Ramon C. Cortines and Chief Operating Officer Howard Miller say they are facing as they work to retool the giant bureaucracy.

The two men, who will form the district’s new one-two administrative team next year, may cut the nearly $100-million program by as much as half, focusing instead on only a few grade levels or lowering the cutoff level.

In an interview, they expressed virtually identical views of what is needed to reform a bureaucracy they perceive as being filled with hard-working people who have become tragically disconnected from their mission.

Some employees will prosper and some will not as Cortines and Miller revamp working relationships, pull in outside talent, downsize and, in some cases, demote or dismiss those they believe are not up to their jobs.

And, although neither would offer any clues about how they intend to divide their responsibilities, Cortines said he expects Miller to remain for a possibly extended period after a new superintendent starts July 1.

“This place has had enough blips on its screen,” Cortines said in the interview Friday. “I want the stability.”

The school board’s decision last week to terminate Supt. Ruben Zacarias’ contract and bring in Cortines ended an often bitter fight between the board and the superintendent.

To help ease Zacarias’ departure, Cortines will become interim superintendent only after Zacarias steps down Jan. 15. Until then, he will officially serve as an advisor to Zacarias.

Cortines has since tiptoed around the impromptu turf boundaries drawn up last week.

The 67-year-old reformer, known for a firm hand and a penchant for center stage, has set up quarters in a modest office well down the hall from the more splendid glass-walled foyer installed only this year by Zacarias.

In his temporary role as advisor, Cortines said he is being careful to advise rather than direct the deputies, superintendents and managers he has begun to systematically interview.

“It’s sensitive and tenuous,” Cortines said.

But already he is treading on sensitive ground in the debate over Zacarias’ plan to halt social promotion, the practice of giving passing grades to students who are not proficient in grade-level requirements.

Despite previous statements that he would not delay the end of social promotion, Cortines conceded Friday that the district may not be able to completely halt the practice this year.

“Instead of just saying, ‘Several hundred thousand kids will be involved all at once,’ I’ve asked what it would mean if it was just implemented at the middle and high school levels, for example,” he said.

Cortines said there are numerous obstacles to implementation of standards-based promotion, including lack of classroom space and the need to train uncredentialed teachers.

“This is not going to be the gimmick of the year,” he said.

Although he appears to have wavered on social promotion, Cortines minces no words about what will happen when he steps into the No. 1 spot two months from now.

“I’m going to be analyzing,” Cortines said. “And then we’ll be sending some quotas for reduction in various departments and some elimination. That doesn’t necessarily mean the elimination of some of those services. But I believe we have a lot of little fiefdoms, and I do not believe some of the titles of individuals go along with their functions at all.”

The power struggle that led the board to oust Zacarias has rippled through the ranks of senior managers, leaving some talking of retirement and others muttering under their breath.

“Everybody anticipates major reshuffling,” said one high-level employee who asked not to be identified. “There are many individual able younger people ready to fill top-level positions.”

Neither Cortines nor Miller disputed that conclusion.

“I think there are a great many people in this district who have understood the kind of change that is necessary and who welcome what has to be done and will be done,” Miller said.

Cortines and Miller cited instruction, information technology, budget and finance, and personnel as areas that need scrutiny.

Cortines singled out the district’s governmental affairs operation, currently the domain of one of three deputy superintendents, as a candidate for downsizing.

“That’s a lobbying service,” he said. “It is not necessarily in my way of thinking a superintendency.”

Cortines, a former superintendent in New York, San Francisco and Pasadena, said, “I’ve run a system larger than this. I had only one individual in Albany” lobbying New York state officials, and that person had a support staff of two.

L.A. Unified’s Deputy Supt. Ronald Prescott, who is in charge of governmental relations, said that he was surprised by Cortines’ comments and that he hopes to have a chance to impress on the educator the full range of Prescott’s duties, including policy research and communications as well as lobbying.

“It’s the entire school district function,” Prescott said. “Everything the school district does at one time or another has gone through that office and probably will again in the future.”

Both Cortines and Miller said they do not expect to push any major changes during the next two months, when they will both be listening and working to make the “troika” with Zacarias function smoothly.

The superintendent, meanwhile, said he too will be focused on helping Cortines through a smooth transition.

“We haven’t actually had time to sit down and talk about all these issues,” Zacarias said. “This week, he’s been literally going from one end of the district to the other, meeting people at all levels, which is important.”

In his first full week on the job, Cortines has formed what appears to be a seamless relationship with Miller, a real estate lawyer and former member of the Los Angeles Board of Education. Miller’s appointment as chief executive a month ago touched off the stalemate with the board that ended Zacarias’ career and brought Cortines into the picture.

Cortines and Miller meet daily at 7:30 a.m. and have been on a whirlwind tour of schools, as well as meeting with senior staff and union leaders.

The team has won high opening marks from the teachers union, which has long felt estranged from Zacarias.

Cortines “made a big point of saying his first appointment was with the teacher union president,” said United Teachers-Los Angeles President Day Higuchi. “Today he met with UTLA officers for an hour and a half. He’s already done 40% of the meetings Ruben Zacarias did with UTLA in 2 1/2 years.”

Miller said he and Cortines have not held any formal talks with the district’s unions on their contracts that expire June 30. He also declined to discuss contract negotiations.

“It remains to be seen what happens,” Higuchi said. “It’s still the honeymoon. Let’s see what happens after everybody goes over several bumps in the road.”