SYSTEM MUST BE TAUGHT TO SUCCEED, TOO.

Byline: John Perez

RECENT news at the Los Angeles Unified School District has been sunny. Test scores rose for the sixth straight year, reflecting improved academic performance from elementary grades through high school. LAUSD teachers are especially proud that our students' achievements outpaced the statewide average.

The API results are further proof that we are turning around the country's second-largest school district. Before we break out the party hats, however, it's worth noting the serious challenges ahead. The district is now in the third year of a bad economy, and all signs indicate worse times to come.

Here are five steps we can take to make LAUSD a lean, mean educating machine before the budget crisis forces the school board to cut programs most responsible for student achievement and labor peace.

1. Comb through the entire district budget for savings.

So far the bureaucrats have aimed the most significant cuts at health benefits and other employee-related expenses. Nobody doubts that the $12.5 billion LAUSD budget is rife with waste and misplaced priorities. Last year, for example, the district spent $20 million to rent hotel rooms and other meeting spaces for events that could have been held in LAUSD facilities at no charge.

It's time to open up the books. The school board needs accurate data to make effective decisions. An open budget process will also bolster public confidence in the LAUSD - a prerequisite for passage of the $3.8 billion school-construction bond expected to be on the March ballot.

2. Consolidate or eliminate the 11 minidistricts.

When the district whipped up this decentralization scheme in 2000, it was supposed to cut administrative costs and put decision-making closer to the public. In reality, the minidistricts have only added another layer of expensive bureaucracy.

During the past three years, the number of students grew 7 percent, while classroom employees only increased 5.4 percent. Why, then, did the number of nonclassroom employees jump 22 percent?

Meanwhile, total administrative costs doubled from $592 million to $1.3 billion. The bureaucrats now swallow more than 10 percent of the overall budget, and that doesn't count tens of millions of dollars paid to consultants.

3. Give communities real input in their local schools.

It should now be clear that the minidistrict experiment has failed. Less clear is what should replace them. One answer is to reverse another trend that has taken place ``under the radar'' at LAUSD.

During the past three years, administrators have tried to undermine and eliminate school-based management. SBM transferred significant decision-making from central offices to schools, where principals, teachers, parents, students and support staff were encouraged to work together. At its peak, about a third of LAUSD elementary, middle and high schools were SBM schools.

The bureaucrats, however, prefer keeping power unto themselves, so they closed the district's SBM office and have tried to convince the public that the minidistricts have improved access.

4. Make district medical plans as efficient as possible.

When the school board voted in September to continue funding employee health benefits for the current school year, it avoided a crisis like the current strike at Southern California supermarkets and the recently settled Metropolitan Transportation Authority strike. United Teachers Los Angeles and a coalition of unions representing LAUSD employees agreed to steps saving $3 million this year.

UTLA is sponsoring a series of meetings around the district to educate union members on the health care crisis, and we are auditing the district health plans for other possible savings.

5. Lobby Washington to develop a national health care system.

LAUSD benefits didn't cause the health care crisis. Spiraling medical costs are casting long shadows over every American because the country's medical, pharmaceutical and insurance giants have failed us. The White House and Congress have turned deaf ears to working people's calls for help, but Washington will respond if civic and business leaders demand a comprehensive strategy.

UTLA and other LAUSD unions ask the board and Superintendent Roy Romer to join us in mobilizing the state education community and corporate supporters to lobby Washington for a national solution to the health care crisis.