School Reform and Executive Pay

* If a Pulitzer Prize were awarded for the most depressing article of the year, “School Reform Pays Off--for Executives” (June 25) would be a major candidate for the prize. Did anyone seriously think the Los Angeles Unified School District “reform” would have any other result? We’re about to be treated to 11 bloated bureaucratic centers, and you may be sure they will all be carpeted and with air-conditioning that actually works; and the people who staff it will consider it part of their job description to avoid going to school sites as much as possible so as not to see at firsthand the realities of classroom problems.

Do I sound sarcastic? As a recently retired teacher, I just received an invitation from the LAUSD “to consider part-time reemployment” as a consulting teacher in the Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) program to assist burned-out permanent teachers who “have demonstrated below satisfactory performance.” In other words, the entrenched LAUSD bureaucracy has to hire consultants because its own staff [plus] 11 centers do not provide for helping poorly performing teachers. And your article says nothing about how these “centers” will provide concrete support for school sites. Can’t get more depressing than this. Or can it?

ABRAHAM HOFFMAN

West Hills