A School System That Works.

L.A. ARCHDIOCESE RUNS LEAN, DECENTRALIZED NETWORK, AS LAUSD STRUGGLES

SUPERINTENDENT Ramon Cortines last week announced a dramatic plan to overhaul the massive Los Angeles Unified School District: Cut half the 2,000 central office staffers and shift the focus to the schools themselves.

Such talk may mark a bold, new world for LAUSD. But there's another large school system overlapping LAUSD that is already decentralized and streamlined, and seldom makes headlines.

The Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles -- the third-largest system in the state, after L.A. and San Diego -- have been quietly educating students at a fraction of the public schools' per-pupil cost and producing test scores, on average, at or above grade level.

And it accomplishes all this with only 25 central-office bureaucrats.

That's a ratio of 4,000 students to every central-office administrator, while LAUSD has an administrator for every 355 students.

"Some days, we think it's too lean," said Jerome Porath, superintendent of schools for the archdiocese. Yet, he adds, "(Even) if we had the excess to invest in more central-office personnel, the number would not go up much."

The archdiocesan system, which has about 100,000 students, provides a striking contrast to a dysfunctional public system that is only now taking steps toward widespread reforms and decentralization.

Of course, there are fundamental differences between the two systems, most glaringly that one collects tuition, incorporates prayer, morals and religion into the curriculum, and requires either uniforms or detailed dress codes. And public schools are saddled with many more requirements for approvals, paperwork and reporting than private and parochial schools.

In addition, some operating functions used by the Catholic school system (e.g. construction, legal and insurance) are handled out of the main Archdiocese offices, rather than out of the school system offices.

Yet the two systems have more in common than many might realize, including student populations that cover a range of skill, economic and language-proficiency levels and limited finances.

Howard Miller, the L.A. district's chief operating officer, said he's aware of the archdiocese's educational success with such a lean bureaucracy. While LAUSD probably could not pare down to the same ratio, the goal is to "get people out of central administration."

"It may be true that we need more people than the archdiocese, but it doesn't follow we need 10 times as many," Miller said. "The key is to keep the central office as small as possible and delegate to the mini-district. We have to have decisions made as close to the schools as possible."

Under the plan Cortines announced earlier this year, the district would be divided into 11 mini-districts that would have more control over how money is spent. And under the shakeup unveiled last week, about 1,000 administrators will retire or be reassigned, some of them to schools.

Porath has referred to the 275 archdiocesan schools -- which are spread throughout Santa Barbara, Ventura and L.A. counties -- as "a system of schools, not a school system."

"Being decentralized makes a great deal of sense to us," Porath said. "We don't keep a list of every student at every school. What would we do with it? Our job is to support and direct the schools to provide a Catholic education and work with the principals so we empower them and support them -- so they get good results."

Each school has its own budget. Principals are responsible for hiring teachers, support staff and custodians, If a major repair is needed to a school property, it is reviewed by the archdiocese's construction department -- "so the building's not inappropriately renovated," Porath explained. But the school itself handles the hiring of the contractor and pays the bill.

"You definitely have a lot of autonomy, within the guidelines of the archdiocese," said Sharon Morano, principal of Bishop Conaty, Our Lady of Loretto High School in Central L.A. "I've always found that I call the shots. There's a good ease of communication. I don't find interference."

While the archdiocesan schools use the California standard curriculum guidelines, individual schools have leeway within those guidelines for educational materials and other programs.

Such decision-making at the school level is what reformers have been pushing for LAUSD.

"It's an example of why people from all denominations, or no denomination, put their children into not only Catholic schools, but private schools of all sorts, because there's more interest in education rather than building up a huge bureaucracy," said Paula Boland, co-chair of Finally Restoring Excellence in Education (FREE), which is seeking to break up the LAUSD by splitting off the San Fernando Valley.

"When you have a system that is closer to the parents and the parents have the ability to complain, it compels the district to do a whole lot better job," Boland said.

Regional supervisors of the archdiocesan schools oversee upwards of 25 schools apiece. Each school submits an annual financial statement, enrollment numbers, personnel information and standardized test results. Schools that are unable to cover all their operating expenses -- through tuition, fund-raising events, parent donations and other sources -- can obtain financial assistance from the Archdiocese, but in return they are required to provide more frequent financial reports.

The central office also conducts annual "attitudinal surveys" to gauge the schools' strengths and weaknesses, as perceived by students, parents, faculty and staff. Those results are then reported back to principals.

While the LAUSD has an elected board with various agendas, the L.A. Archdiocese has an advisory board that formulates policies (such as the job descriptions for principals), subject to approval by Cardinal Roger Mahony.

"The work of the office and school board is more in the way of setting directions or plans than detailed policies," Porath said. "As long as the students are there and being educated and families continue sending them, that's the only measure of success (Mahony) has."

Local public school districts, by contrast, are often beholden to additional governmental authorities. But Miller said, "the system has always used that as an excuse."

Porath said that public schools' orientation toward government officials rather than students and parents dates back to reports in the late 1970s and early '80s that said American public schools lagged behind their counterparts in other countries.

"The reaction within government to that (conclusion) was to, over a period of time, consolidate control and authority over education in state capitals," Porath said. "All of which has caused public education to look up rather than down -- to state and federal authorities as opposed to their customers. We get our money from families, so you can guess where our attention is. To me, that's a primary difference."

Besides their decentralized structure, a shared vision sets the Catholic schools apart, said Maria Casillas, president of the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project and herself a product of Catholic schools. She is helping the LAUSD implement its restructuring into mini-districts.

"The same philosophy permeates the (L.A. Archdiocese) system," Casillas said. "If you look at the mechanism (Catholic schools) use -- where the public schools can learn from them is to shift resources and share ideas and have a common higher purpose."

Catholic schools emphasize academic basics and moral values, as well as high expectations for behavior, strict standards and more parental involvement.

"When you have people who share the same values, it makes a difference," Principal Morano said. "You're espousing the tenets of the faith and it will come across in the teaching. It sets the tone on how you handle various situations that develop at a school."

With Cortines scheduled to leave the LAUSD helm in June, the clock is ticking for the district to quickly pare down and shift resources to the schools. And a little divine intervention may not hurt.

"Can we get it done in five months? I'm praying to God to get it done," Casillas said.

                        Tale of Two School Systems
         How the LAUSD compares with the L.A. Archdiocese Catholic
                              school system.
                                      Archdiocese        LAUSD
  Enrollment                              100,000      711,000
  Central office administrators                25        2,000
  Annual budget                      $280 million $7.5 billion
  Cost per pupil                           $2,800      $10,500
  Teachers as percent of total staff         60%+          53%
Student ethnicity:
  Latino                                      44%          70%
  Asian-Pacific Islander                      19%           7%
  African American                             8%          13%
  Caucasian/Other                             29%          10%
Sources: LAUSD, L.A. Archdiocese