Q&A: HIGUCHI SHARES UTLA'S VISION FOR LAUSD.

Q. With all the waste and inefficiency that has been reported at many levels in the Los Angeles Unified School District from bottom to top, you still are not supportive of breaking the LAUSD into smaller districts. Why?

A. ``Chop from the top'' is a theme we've always had in our labor disputes. But that never really happens, or it only happens a little bit. That being said, I think our position is that a large school district does have some advantages if it's done right. The economies of scale can be used effectively.

But before you do it right, we have to sort of flush the crud out of the system. So you'll see us agreeing with some of the board members, like David Tokofsky, that there needs to be some function like an inspector general.

Q. But if that's necessary, doesn't that indicate problems in the system? How can you defend the system and not say we need massive changes?

A. Our point of view is that just simply breaking up the system isn't the answer. Redesigning the system is not the same as breaking it up.

A lot of research shows that small classrooms are better for kids. Looking at all the research, I say there's absolutely no evidence the size of the school district makes any difference.

If you correct for economic status and other variables like that, small school districts don't do any better than big school districts.

Q. There's a proposal on the table to create two Valley school districts . . .

A. Both of which would be larger than most other school districts.

Q. So what are you proposing?

A. I'm saying take it out of the hands of school board members, other than the policy issues. I think that what has to happen is that the money and the control of the money basically have to go to the individual school sites.

The first step has to be decentralization of budgeting. Everybody says that unless you decentralize the budgets, you're not decentralizing anything.

We have school districts up and down the state that have 1,000 kids and four buildings - an elementary school, a middle school, a high school and a superintendent's office - and those school districts are no more decentralized than the L.A. Unified. And the teachers in the schools have no more freedom of action, the principals have no more freedom of action, and things are no less stupid than they are in the L.A. Unified.

What really needs to happen is (changing) the whole notion that school districts require lots of bureaucracy governed by school boards to make sure what goes on in the classroom is good. That's the obsolete idea.

Our point of view is that you really have local autonomy of the kind we're talking about, if you guarantee high-quality teachers, if you guarantee that the schools are so safe that the parents don't have to worry about it, and if you have really high academic standards and ways to get there, then parents are going to be happy with their school.

Q. What sort of accountability do you have in mind for teachers?

A. What we're proposing is something that works well. It's working in Poway, Calif., it started in Toledo, Ohio, it's working in (other cities). It's a peer intervention system.

A peer intervention system is simply a way in which teachers take responsibility for the quality of the services that their colleagues provide. You have to realize that it isn't just the kids who are suffering because there's an incompetent teacher. It's also the teachers who have to clean up after that teacher, who have to make up for what the kids didn't learn, who have to get that teacher's kids out of the hallway and back into that teacher's classroom, who have to do extra supervision and disciplinary duty because of that teacher.

So teachers have no love or tolerance of their colleagues who ought to be able to be doing the job but can't.

Q. What are you proposing?

A. First, you make sure that the system has some kind of help for people like this.

Having been afforded that help, the second thing is that you can assign someone to work with that teacher. Believe me, in all these districts both union and management are anxious to initiate the process in order to see if, No. 1, a dysfunctional teacher can be trained to become OK. In about 65 percent of the cases, that actually happens. An experienced senior teacher is assigned to the job of trying to help that teacher so that that happens.

But after a period of time, a report is made, and the report simply says either that the person can return to the classroom or that this (intervention) hasn't worked.

At that point, if it hasn't worked, then a panel gets the report. The panel usually has one more union-appointed member than district-appointed members.

The panel cross-examines, listens to the case, and the panel finally makes a recommendation - that the person should not be continued or, in the majority of cases, that the person should not return to the classroom.

In the majority of cases, if they did not go back to the classroom, they voluntarily seek other employment. In the rare instances when they contested that finding and the attempt of the district to terminate them, it's usually an open-and-shut case.

Q. Let me get this straight. We don't really need school boards and we don't really need principals and administrators; we just turn it over to teachers to supervise other teachers?

A. No, no - this is not supervision. This is intervention, which is an attempt to help the person. But the report then is issued (saying) that it didn't work, and then the panel makes a recommendation.

Legally, the union cannot supervise. So it makes a recommendation to the superintendent, who then takes action.

The system works. The Toledo, Ohio, system has been working for, I think, 16 years. Teachers there defend this as the best thing.

Q. When will this happen in Los Angeles?

A. In our last contract, signed last September, we agreed that we would be sending a proposal for this system to our membership for ratification. We hope to be doing it this fall.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: DAY HIGUCHI