Teachers’ Role in Management May Improve L.A. Schools

Tens of thousands of America’s teachers are embarking with administrators on a provocative adventure in joint management of their schools.

Pilot programs that already have passed the preliminary stages are operating in such communities as Pittsburgh; Cincinnati; Rochester, N.Y.; Toledo, Ohio; Hammond, Ind., and Dade County, Fla., the country’s fourth-largest school district, which includes Miami.

The teacher-administrator cooperative system may soon be introduced in Los Angeles, spurred by recently appointed school Superintendent Leonard M. Britton, who inaugurated the Dade County program a year ago when he was superintendent there. He worked closely with Pat Tornillo, president of the American Federation of Teachers’ local for Dade.

Wayne Johnson, president of United Teachers/Los Angeles, says he supports the idea enthusiastically and that it could become the linchpin in the current negotiations for a new union contract for Los Angeles’ 32,000 teachers.

The system, sometimes labeled the Japanese style of management when used in industrial settings, could provide significant help in the urgent task of improving the nation’s deteriorating educational structure.

The system calls on teachers, in effect, to “heal themselves,” or at least help heal themselves, and the schools, too.

If it doesn’t work as well as expected, the new “teacher, heal thyself” concept could turn out to taunt teachers as scornfully as that ancient proverb, “physician, heal thyself,” has taunted physicians for nearly 2,000 years.

But teachers can help cure the problems of our schools.

Better training, pay and working conditions for the country’s 2.5 million teachers are basic essentials for improving the schools. These necessities cost money and can be provided if education is given a higher priority than it now has in this country.

However, also crucial are increasing the status of teachers and their self-esteem, two less tangible factors that participatory management of the schools can help achieve.

An even more important benefit of joint management would be the fuller use that could be made of the often-neglected knowledge teachers have of the needs of pupils and of the overall operations of the schools.

There are several variations in the programs planned or now in use.

Los Angeles union and school administrators recently exchanged visits with their counterparts in Dade County to learn how that system works and its applicability here.

Dade’s program is now working in 43 of the county’s 280 schools. Each “pilot” school’s funds are spent according to decisions made by the principals, other administrators and elected committees of teachers, who are usually union members.

The Dade County School Board and the union removed previous countywide requirements governing such major issues as class size, length of class periods and the school day. Teachers and administrators together now determine these and other issues based on their joint assessment of their particular school’s needs.

Teachers are joining principals to, among other things, evaluate teacher performance, develop curriculum, select textbooks and design special programs for gifted students. Teachers who spend significant extra time on administrative work are paid extra money. And, like other programs around the country, Dade is developing a career ladder for teachers.

The cooperative management system in Rochester includes a “Career in Teaching” program that offers teachers a second route to get at least close to the top of the school’s salary structure without leaving the classroom.

Qualified teachers selected by faculty committees are offered assignments as lead teachers who, for example, serve as mentors to new teachers or handle the most difficult classes. If they agree not to seek supervisory or administrative posts for at least two years, they can earn up to $68,500 a year as classroom teachers.

Rochester, determined to improve its school system, also has agreed to a new contract that will boost teacher salaries by more than 40% over the next three years.

Starting salaries will go up to $28,934 by the end of the contract--a 52.4% increase that union and school board administrators say will allow Rochester to compete financially for the “best and brightest” college graduates.

Participants in cooperative management say that in addition to giving teachers a significant role in school administration and improving the quality of teaching, the system reduces the teacher-administrator conflicts so typical of many school districts.

In Los Angeles, the last major effective teachers’ strike was in 1970, but relations between the Board of Education and the teachers’ union, UTLA, have been under a constant strain, even with the election of several board members who were regarded as pro-teacher.

The union president, Johnson, said many teachers feel that administrators are their enemies, with “no genuine concern for teachers and mostly concerned with perpetuation of their own power and authority.”

While Superintendent Britton disagrees with that harsh assessment, they both agree that Los Angeles needs less adversarial relations between teachers and administrators, and they look to Britton’s old home base, Dade County, as a possible model.

Both the superintendent and the union leader share the admirable goal of giving teachers some real decision-making authority, and they should be able to make progress toward it since they are getting along well, at least so far.

One possible obstacle is legal. The Supreme Court and some government agencies have held that if higher education faculties have meaningful roles in school administration, they cannot have a union because they are “managers,” not regular employees.

But it is difficult to believe this twisted logic will survive. Either new court rulings will allow participatory democracy in the schools and other workplaces, or Congress will have to act to let such sensible ideas flourish.

In the meantime, teachers and administrators in Los Angeles and elsewhere are continuing the campaigns for teacher-administrator cooperation, albeit with a wary eye on the possible legal barriers.

This community offers an excellent test for the new system. Los Angeles is the nation’s second-largest school district with an annual budget of $3.4 billion, as well as 600,000 students and 32,000 teachers of remarkably diverse political, linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

If true participatory school management can succeed here, it should work anywhere.

Navy Launches a Plan That Promptly Sinks

It cost the U.S. Navy a pretty penny recently for food, lodging and air fare to fly 109 foreign workers to naval shipyards in Long Beach and Philadelphia and then back home five days later in an attempt to avoid paying overtime to some Americans.

The naval maneuver may not have upset the 82 Japanese and 27 Filipinos who did get a free, if hurried, trip to the United States. Even if they did expect to stay here for up to 60 days on temporary shipyard jobs.

But the Navy’s attempt to save a buck or two in overtime pay for Americans was an expensive exercise in poor management.

The Navy was looking for extra workers to temporarily fill some skilled jobs last November. There had been an attempt to hire Americans, but when that did not succeed quickly enough, the foreigners were flown here from across the Pacific.

The temporary workers, you understand, whether domestic or foreign, would not receive fringe benefits the regular American shipyard workers get. Nor would the temporaries have to be paid for overtime since they would be on straight-time schedules.

But when members of Congress, the shipyard workers and their unions angrily complained about the scheme, the Navy decided to finish the jobs the way many other employers do when they need extra work done: The regular employees were put on overtime schedules.

So, five days after they arrived, the foreigners were flown home, the Americans got some overtime pay and the naval maneuver was over.