CHICAGO SCHOOL REFORMS EARN A'S.

Byline: Terri Hardy Daily News Staff Writer

The towering Lewis Elementary School stands impressively on Chicago's west side as the brick-faced embodiment of Mayor Richard M. Daley's successful turnaround of his city's ailing school system.

On Friday, a delegation from the Los Angeles Unified School District toured Lewis and a high school, learning that Chicago has done quickly what the LAUSD so far has been unable to achieve - significantly improve student performance.

``They do everything so suddenly here. I have to admit, it does have an appeal,'' said LAUSD board member Jeff Horton.

After viewing both schools, Bobbie Farrell, president of the 31st District Parent-Student-Teacher Association, said she likes that parents have power over crucial hiring and financial matters in Chicago. She said she would like to see a similar system in Los Angeles.

``It would scare the district too much,'' she said. ``I think it would take legislative action to force them. They'd never do it willingly.''

Indeed, the pace of the LAUSD's reform has been snail-like and piecemeal, despite mounting calls from parents and city officials alike to boost student performance and hold teachers and administrators accountable.

Superintendent Ruben Zacarias put together a plan to improve the worst 100 schools, and this year announced the same type of program for the rest. He and the board have said they want pay hikes for all district employees tied to student achievement, but a year later no proposals have been submitted.

Under Zacarias' plan for school accountability, campuses that show drops in test scores are put on probation.

By contrast, Chicago schools that worsen are reconstituted or the principal and teachers are removed and must reapply for their jobs. Zacarias has said only that principals and teachers face transfer or dismissal.

L.A. success

Yet Los Angeles' plan has had some success, with 68 of the worst 100 schools showing improvement. United Teachers Los Angeles is fighting the plan, and it has lukewarm support from some board members. But in Chicago, the hardball tactics apparently have paid off.

At the beginning of last school year, Lewis Elementary was put on probation. Instead of frustrating the staff, it inspired them, said Principal Gladys Pruitt. Reading resource teacher Carol Siegel agreed, saying it only affected ``teachers not up to the task.''

``Most of us were happy to get help, we knew things were bad here,'' Siegel said.

Under the new reforms, seven high schools were reconstituted. Half of the staff was kept on, and the remaining 200 resigned or were transferred.

In the previous system, teachers were fired only if they committed a crime, according to Chicago board President Gery Chico. Now it takes only a year to eliminate poor-performing instructors.

The focal point of the new system is local, 11-member school governing councils that include six parents. The councils can hire principals and have power over the budget.

If the school goes on probation or is reconstituted, the principals can lose their four-year contracts immediately. In the first year of reform, 127 lost their jobs, and in the second year, 97.

While many would think that the system would infuriate the famously powerful Chicago Teachers Union and the administrators association, they would be wrong. Beyond problems with a few details, they overwhelmingly support Daley's efforts.

Teacher raises

Daley has been generous, giving teachers a 13 percent raise over four years. The contract was recently renegotiated a year early, with an additional 9 percent to be given over the next four years. Salaries range from more than $32,000 for a beginning teacher to almost $52,000. Principals got a handsome increase as well, with the salary range from $82,000 to $103,000.

The result has been an unheard-of eight strike-free years and cooperation.

``I have a love affair with this administration - this one actually listens to us,'' said Beverly Tunney, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association.

In Los Angeles, calls have gone unheeded to reform the slow, almost impossible process of ridding bad-apple teachers and principals.

At LAUSD, teaching salaries for the 1998-99 school year range from $31,926 to a high of $56,692. And principals in 1997 made $55,500 to $81,693.

For students and parents at Lewis Elementary, the turnaround is welcomed and irrefutable.

``Teachers who used to be here were holding on to some old ideas: these poor little children from the inner city, we'll just keep them pacified and push them along. For those teachers, it was all about collecting a paycheck,'' said parent Arthur Winfrey, a postal worker and president of the school's governance council (who happens to be Oprah's cousin).

Under Daley's reforms, those teachers are gone. After years of instability, the school has a dynamic principal who pushed the number of students reading at grade level from 10 percent to 20 percent in a year.

Similar improvements are evident at Amundsen High School, on Chicago's northwest side, which has many of the same conditions found in the LAUSD. The school is teeming with new immigrants from 50 nations, most Latino, and is operating at 130 percent of capacity.

In 1996, the school was put on probation because only 11 percent of students were scoring at or above grade level in reading. The next year, 29 percent were reading at grade level or above, causing Daley to declare the campus the ``fastest-improving Chicago high school.''

The curriculum focuses on reading, reading and more reading - in every class, even physical education.

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PHOTO Parent volunteer Joyce Head, left, talks with Los Angeles schoolboard President Victoria Castro at Chicago's Lewis Elementary.

Peter Barreras/Associated Press