Romer Needs a Fast Start

Former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, soon to be the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, has already heard strong opinions from many, including this editorial page, who are worried about the school board’s decision to choose him to run the troubled district. That said, Romer wants to make the LAUSD work, as does everyone who cares about public education. So what needs to happen to promote success?

Romer will take over the LAUSD at a pivotal time--the district, under siege from breakup proponents, may well not survive if Romer and the current LAUSD board fail. Interim Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, Chief Operating Officer Howard Miller and the school board have begun to forge a more disciplined course. They have focused on improving teaching and learning. They have weeded out some ineffective managers. Now is not the time to let up.

As he learns the LAUSD, the incoming superintendent will need the advice and counsel of a strong educator, one who knows what works in the classroom and how to get things done in a school district known for neither speed nor efficiency. Guidance on the $7.7-billion budget and the huge facilities backlog would allow Romer to work his contacts in Washington, use his political skills to end the meddling from Sacramento and concentrate on a major problem: building schools. Without a whip-cracker who can hold the line and pay close attention to details, Romer could become a bull’s-eye for the deeply entrenched career bureaucrats and administrators who eagerly resist change and have outlasted five revolving-door superintendents since 1990.

Romer can quickly prove he is tough enough for the job by standing up to what are likely to be high demands from the district’s many unions--this is a district in which, incredibly, even administrators and principals are unionized. If he is serious about improving instruction, he must find ways to pay the best teachers more and extract more flexibility from the unions.

Reorganization will provide another early challenge. On July 1, the day the former governor officially takes over as schools chief, the LAUSD will be divided into 11 semiautonomous subdistricts, each headed by a district superintendent who will report to Romer. How will he use them? Decentralization is intended to improve instruction and management. If it fails, the movement to break up the district will gain greater momentum.

A plan to carve two independent San Fernando Valley school districts from the LAUSD is now before the state Board of Education, which will decide whether to put the proposal to a public vote. Last week a county committee charged with advising the board deadlocked on the breakup plan after an independent consultant reported that the proposed districts would lack sufficient funding. Because the plan required a majority vote, the 5-5 tie amounts to a negative recommendation. But the state board is not required to take the committee’s advice, and the Valley group pushing breakup has vowed to continue its fight.

Dissatisfaction with L.A. schools is not limited to the Valley. On the Westside, the Eastside, in South Los Angeles, in Koreatown, in Pico-Union, in every neighborhood, parents and students are frustrated by unacceptable test scores, uneven teaching, a shortage of textbooks, crowded campuses and inconvenient year-round calendars. Rebuilding public confidence in a district abandoned by thousands of parents will require quick, steady and dramatic progress well beyond last year’s barely measurable increases on the Stanford 9 test.

The job of rebuilding confidence doesn’t belong to Romer alone. The school board, led by President Genethia Hayes, deeply disappointed many district parents who saw the rushed appointment of a politician and Democratic Party official as a betrayal of the board’s promise of fundamental, no-more-business-as-usual reform.

The board must do a better job of articulating not only where it’s taking this school district but how and why its actions support a reform agenda. The strongest political wills on Earth can’t fix the LAUSD without the support and trust of an anxious community that desperately needs the school board and Romer to succeed.