Plan to Decentralize Schools Adopted

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday adopted a sweeping reorganization plan designed to cut 800 central office jobs and shift another 500 from headquarters to 11 new subdistricts.

The board’s unanimous vote will set in motion a crash effort to open 11 district offices, hire 11 new superintendents and redeploy hundreds of workers by July 1.

Interim Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said the plan will shift money and authority to the new districts and recast the central office in the role of tactical support.

The plan will flatten the district hierarchy to eliminate a convoluted reporting structure that distracts principals from their mission of delivering education, said chief operating officer Howard Miller.

“Every principal in every one of the schools is only one step removed from the superintendent and the superintendent is one step removed from the general superintendent,” Miller said.

Board members praised the plan as a bold start on reform of the 711,000-student district, but also said they believe it is only a first step.

“I think this is a courageous first step we are taking,” said board member Caprice Young. “I don’t think it goes far enough. I think we need to have even more local control, clearly articulated.”

Acknowledging that his plan was not perfect, Cortines said he had already appointed a team to follow its implementation and make monthly recommendations to the board on adjustments.

“Since I first presented this to the board I have made many modifications based on information provided to me by the staff or community,” Cortines said.

Before voting for the plan, several board members queried Cortines on points they considered ambiguous.

Board member David Tokofsky, for example, pressed for clarification on how disagreements between the general superintendent and the 11 district administrators would be resolved.

Cortines said the district superintendents would make decisions about budgeting, personnel and instruction, but would be held to account for improvement in students’ performance.

“If the general superintendent is not pleased with that service, that person can be asked to step down,” Cortines said.

District officials said they will start on the massive personnel changes today by advertising for the 11 superintendents’ spots. By the end of the week, they will post lists of about 200 new senior positions that will be open for applicants and will identify the hundreds of employees who will be required to apply for new positions.

The new districts will replace a structure of 27 smaller units called clusters that represented the most recent of many efforts to decentralize the district. The clusters were organized around one to three high schools and their feeder schools.

Since its introduction last month, the plan has received considerable scrutiny. Some critics are skeptical of its promise of saving $46 million through staff cuts and shifting authority to the 11 subdistricts.

More than a dozen speakers Tuesday opposed the reorganization plan, many saying it was thrown together hastily and lacked sufficient detail.

But the plan passed its most serious test when leaders of two business-sponsored educational reform groups offered their qualified support.

The plan posed a thorny problem for LEARN, the reform plan that gives schools significant autonomy in making budget and hiring decisions.

Leaders of LEARN have had several conversations recently with Cortines to be sure that principals chosen by LEARN councils would not be replaced by employees from the central office looking for new jobs. Some will have seniority rights that would allow them to bump junior colleagues.

Cortines agreed informally to that principle, with one reservation--that every school must show improvement.

“I do believe after a period of one year, if there is not progress toward academic achievement, changes need to be made,” he said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Subdistrict Plan

The Los Angeles Board of Education on Tuesday adopted a re-organization plan that will divide the 711,000-student district into the 11 subdistricts shown here. A superintendent will be named for each subdistrict. Overall policy will still be decided by a general superintendent and one Board of Education.

*

Although the boundaries were meant to create roughly equal districts, there are still significant variations. Some characteristics of the new districts are:

* Schools: 36 to 76

* Enrollment: 51,731 to 77,045

* Percentage of disadvantaged*

students: 49 to 90

*

* Students receiving free or reduced-price lunches.