As LAUSD continues to layoff some of the best teachers I know, I wonder how effective any of the multi-pronged union efforts has been. Strikes (legal, illegal, “wildcat”, hunger, sit-ins, you name it) get piddles of press here and there. While I’m not comfortable yet in fully speculating on the direction of UTLA, LAUSD, or the future of Manual Arts. I did want to share a quote that’s about a year and a half old:<\/p>\n
“I\u2019ve always been a teacher. That\u2019s the highest of the hierarchy. That\u2019s not the bottom it\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. We\u2019ve lost sight of that.” In case you’re wondering, that is indeed Superintendent Ray Cortines in an interview Travis Miller and I conducted when Cortines was working with the Mayor’s Partnership. Funny how the quote reads differently in light of the changes that have taken place.<\/p>\n I’ve linked to this interview a few other times on this blog, but thought I’d post the actual thing here to make it easier to reference. The focus of the interview was local autonomy. However, there’s plenty here that speaks to the dire situation for teachers and students today.\u00a0 Full interview after the jump.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve Always Been a Teacher\u201d \u2013 An interview with Ray Cortines<\/strong> Update<\/strong>: It has been seven months since Andy and I sat down with Ramon Cortines in his City Hall office. Just this week it was announced that he will be returning to LAUSD as the Superintendent of Instruction.<\/p>\n Travis Miller: <\/strong>We are very interested in LAUSD\u2019s shift from a central district into many mini-districts. Ray Cortines:<\/strong> It was unanimously approved by the Board of Education, supported by the teachers\u2019 union, supported by the administrators\u2019 union, and Governor Romer got the job as superintendent based on saying he would implement it. However, Romer believed strongly in a very centralized system.<\/p>\n I came to the district in a very difficult time; the board was firing Dr. Zacharias and not handling it well. The Board asked me to stay on and I said I would stay on until June. We agreed that I would reorganize the district, cut the central office, move to decentralization, balance the budget, and create stability. We did that. And we did that in about nine months in the year 2000.<\/p>\n I visit schools all the time, that\u2019s been my history. I show up unannounced, without an entourage. I don\u2019t do it to \u201cget\u201d somebody; I want to see what\u2019s happening. I was a teacher at every grade level; I know that teachers need support. Many times all you need is \u201cgood morning.\u201d Many times it\u2019s \u201chow\u2019s it going\u201d or for a teacher to say, \u201cJeez, I had a rough day.\u201d But also many times it is to get the kind of support or somebody that they can talk to: a peer.<\/p>\n There is a book \u2013 they hide it \u2013 that we wrote about decentralization. The idea was that I was concerned because of the size of the district and I don\u2019t believe that size is usually a problem. I have run small districts and they\u2019re just as complicated as this one is; size is just an excuse for not paying attention to teachers and parents and facilities and students. During my time as superintendent, I visited schools probably three times a week all over the city. What I saw was that if you were in the Valley or San Pedro, during peak traffic time, it took you an hour and half to two hours to get to the central office. We didn\u2019t do very well responding by telephone either. The whole decentralization process was to put decision making near to where education happens: near the classroom and the school. You didn\u2019t have to drive for two hours.<\/p>\n The book is very comprehensive; it looks at every faucet. It talks about the small central office being of service to the local school districts. It lays out the number of people in the district offices \u2013 it was a very thin document \u2013 because I thought that the principal and teachers at the school building should be engaged in making the decisions about their destiny.<\/p>\n I never saw the district offices as I see them now \u2013 the local district offices \u2013 as compliant agencies or gestapos standing on a campus checking who comes or who goes and all of that.<\/p>\n I was a damned good teacher but there were times when I needed help. I remember my first class, certainly needed help then. I had 44 kids in my first class all 6th graders. I didn\u2019t know that was too many. I was too green. I thought that was what I was dealt so I needed to deal with it, but I had people. I had a principal and a county supervisor that visited me once a month. They didn\u2019t visit to \u201cget\u201d me, but to find out how they could help and what I needed. So I always envisioned people being responsive. Even when I ran New York, I demanded and I checked if the area superintendents were in school buildings.<\/p>\n In my report it talks about how the staff of the local school districts should be in school buildings the majority of the week. You can\u2019t make decisions, know what teachers are going through, know what children and young people are bringing to a school if you don\u2019t observe it. I remember when I was assistant secretary I was very frustrated one day with the bureaucrats and I said, \u201cYou people need to learn how to pick up the paper off of the playground.\u201d<\/p>\n I did an hour interview last night and someone asked me, \u201cWhat are you?\u201d and I said, \u201cI\u2019m a teacher.\u201d I\u2019ve always been a teacher. That\u2019s the highest of the hierarchy. That\u2019s not the bottom it\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. We\u2019ve lost sight of that. Not just in L. A., it\u2019s across the nation. I remember when I was cutting staff and moving people to schools and to local districts people were saying, \u201cI worked for ten years to get here!\u201d I said, \u201c I beg your pardon?\u201d The school is where it\u2019s happening. In New York I used to go and wander the halls and teachers were having problems. I would go into a class and say, \u201cI\u2019ll take it. You can get a cup of coffee.\u201d I\u2019ve taught everything. The state of California says I\u2019m certified to teaching anything. Not qualified, but certified [laughs]. The teacher would come back and it would sometimes be worse than when the teacher left! Many times I had calmed the class down, but what I had done was model for principals and people in the central office that we are partners. That\u2019s what it should be about. Many of our management and administrators are afraid.<\/p>\n I think you need to be deciding what the professional development should be. I think you may need guidance, but you know if the kids have cancer or if they just have a skinned knee. You know that if they have cancer you don\u2019t just give them an aspirin. You need to have some expert help and not just give the hyperactive kid Ritalin.<\/p>\n I think we use the copout of the size of the district to not provide the services that teachers need. I put emphasis on math and reading. I\u2019m very critical of the reading program of the district, even though I put it in.<\/p>\n Travis Miller:<\/strong> The reading program in general or the specific programs?<\/p>\n Ray Cortines:<\/strong> The specific program of Open Court. I put it in mainly because I had visited over 200 schools and I saw that, especially for poor kids, there was no focus on a reading program and it wasn\u2019t prescriptive or diagnostic and they were being short changed. So, I ordered Open Court \u2026 except for 40 schools. I believed that information and data \u2013 if 40 schools could show me evidence that they were making progress then they should be left alone. I should listen to the teachers and the principal and the parents that they know what they are doing.<\/p>\n Travis Miller: <\/strong>What type of evidence? Just test scores? Ray Cortines:<\/strong> No. I don\u2019t believe in just test scores. Parent involvement is evidence. Student attendance is evidence. Behavior of students is evidence. All of those things are important. We live in a testing world; you\u2019re never going to get rid of it. We may modify No Child Left Behind, but you\u2019re not going to get rid of it. I lived with testing as a teacher. I didn\u2019t ignore it, but it didn\u2019t consume me.<\/p>\n I never saved my bulletin boards any one year. I threw them away. My reasoning for that was that I need to look at who the children are, what the world is doing, and make sure that my bulletin boards are adequate to their needs. In doing that, it forced me to be a learner, constantly. And so I never got board. I never got burnt out. Did I get tired? Hell yes.<\/p>\n I wanted the families to be in the schools. I believe that parents should be in schools. I don\u2019t believe they can be disruptive. Share with them; let them share with you. You will understand their kids better. I have always been inclusive.<\/p>\n Regarding the whole issue of observation of watching children and watching other teachers, I so believe that you don\u2019t have time; time in the school day where you can come to my class and see what I\u2019m doing or time for me to go to your class.<\/p>\n I had two teachers my first year on either side of me. They were wonderful. I had enthusiasm for my new career, but they had experience. I also had a good principal that said, \u201cWatch what they do. Look at them. Don\u2019t do what they do, just watch. If it\u2019s applicable, fine. If it\u2019s not mix it up and make it yours.\u201d I believe in that and it\u2019s what I saw in decentralization. I saw the school as the center of learning and the local office as supportive of that. Some people were not happy with the design I put out because they said it was too lean \u2013 they couldn\u2019t do it. I said, \u201c\u2019Yes you can \u2026 if the students and teachers are your priority, not all the other things.\u201d<\/p>\n Travis Miller:<\/strong> Did they mean it was too lean in telling them exactly what to do? Ray Cortines:<\/strong> No. They thought there weren\u2019t enough people. What we have in the district now is you have an assistant to the assistant to the assistant. That\u2019s just bullshit. I saw the local offices as management and administrative training. Whenever I went to schools I looked at teachers and how they managed the classroom. When people ask me how I got trained to be a superintendent, I say my first 6th grade class, managing 44 kids, making sure that the instruction was prescriptive and individualized for 44 kids. I didn\u2019t do it well with some of them. I know that, but I did well with most of them, most of the time.<\/p>\n I constantly look for talent. I remember in San Francisco I thought that the administrative training program at San Francisco State was the pits. I started our own. I went once a month to meet with people. I did it in conjunction with San Francisco State, but I wanted them to have more of a practical understanding \u2013 not just theoretical \u2013 I wanted them to understand what happens at schools.<\/p>\n I had never been a high school principal until I took over a school in Pasadena at the end of a major racial riot. I was an assistant superintendent; I thought I knew everything. Bullshit. I didn\u2019t know anything.<\/p>\n The school is the center. It\u2019s not the center in this district. We don\u2019t value what you do every day. We don\u2019t value your opinions. There\u2019s not a forum for you to share that.<\/p>\n Travis Miller:<\/strong> They purchase materials for us to use all the time without ever once asking. It\u2019s very strange to have all of this stuff purchased on your behalf and it\u2019s not in your size or color.<\/p>\n Ray Cortines:<\/strong> Yes. Somebody said to me, \u201cYou put in Open Court!\u201d Yes. Benevolently, I did dictate it, but I told Romer that it should be modified after the first year. I would have made it more focused. It doesn\u2019t serve English language learners well. Yes, we made gains at the elementary, but if you look at the lowest quartile, they have not made gains.<\/p>\n In New York I gave $10,000 to schools every year if they could raise their scores. However, you didn\u2019t get the money unless you raise the upper quartile, the middle quartile, and the lowest quartile. It was never about three people carrying everyone. It was about learning for everybody. I believe that there should be standards and that we have to adhere to the state standards, but I was a damned creative teacher and don\u2019t tell me how to implement the standards. I\u2019ll do it my way. In regards to decentralization, part of it was that the union supported it because of the problems with the major district. I convinced them that decisions would be closer to schools, that teachers would be more engaged, and that it would also have the spin off value of break up. The break up didn\u2019t happen; the other didn\u2019t happen either.<\/p>\n Travis Miller:<\/strong> We\u2019re friends with [Former UTLA President] Day and Charlotte Higuchi, and we spoke to Day before we came to meet you. He sent me a glowing email about you being the only teacher friendly superintendent he ever knew of.<\/p>\n Ray Cortines:<\/strong> I never knew that. I\u2019ll tell you when I first became superintendent I asked to meet with the union and they said maybe I could have an appointment in three weeks. I said bullshit! [laughs] I showed up at their office the next day. They weren\u2019t going to tell me to go to hell! Travis Miller:<\/strong> Three weeks?<\/p>\n Ray Cortines:<\/strong> See, that\u2019s the way the school district does it. The union is a bureaucracy too. They could be helpful in modeling the rhetoric we all use. We need to create an environment we can use. For example, I call everybody a colleague in this office. Am I the boss? Hell yes, ultimately. I\u2019m not going to get anything done unless it happens through them. I was a principal at every level and I was a successful principal. I was successful because I listened to you. I didn\u2019t always like what you told me; sometimes it was too truthful, but I learned. I would go back to the principal\u2019s office and close the door \u2013 you can\u2019t do that. I so respect that. You can\u2019t escape. Yeah, you can stay home and many of you do which is part of the attendance issue because teachers are so frustrated that they find an excuse. And that\u2019s not everybody or even the majority, but it\u2019s because we don\u2019t try to find out about you. We talk about kids and the problems they bring with them. So do we.<\/p>\n I envisioned a collegial kind of relationship in the decentralization of the district. Not that you don\u2019t need a central office \u2013 you do. But you certainly don\u2019t need Beaudry. Roy [Romer], instead of getting rid of anybody every time they weren\u2019t doing their job, he just moved them down or up a floor. I don\u2019t do that. For example, after the riot in Pasadena and I\u2019d agreed to spend a year as principal, the teachers came to me and they wanted to choose the new principal. I said, \u201cWe\u2019ll share it.\u201d And they said no. They wanted to choose the principal. I caved and they chose the principal. I knew it was the wrong person and we would have had someone better if we\u2019d chosen together. However, they had come through a very difficult time and they had helped solve the problem \u2013 not just me as the interim principal \u2013 we all solved it. Later on, they came to me, \u201cWill you get rid of this principal!?\u201d I said, \u201cI didn\u2019t hire him, you guys did. You get rid of him.\u201d They burst out laughing. They asked where I was going to move the person. I said, \u201cWe\u2019ve been going through an evaluation process. The person is not right. I\u2019m not going to move him. The person will be terminated.\u201d Antero Garcia<\/strong>: Do you view school autonomy as an extension of the kind of decentralization you originally envisioned? Travis Miller:<\/strong> By choice I teach 9th grade and the students that haven\u2019t been picked off by the other teachers. No one has observed me to see if I\u2019m a good teacher but I have a reputation because I go out and speak about what\u2019s going on in my class. Every time I do, I\u2019m told, \u201cThat\u2019s because you do have the gifted students. Let\u2019s be fair about this.\u201d They assume I have the gifted students.<\/p>\n Ray Cortines: <\/strong>They don\u2019t understand gifted and talented kids. Some of them are the worst students. They can be some of the most problematic troublemakers because we don\u2019t excite them or motivate them. Regardless of the learning level of the children, they\u2019re all good ones. Travis Miller:<\/strong> If you were to come back in as superintendent, what would you see as your immediate priorities?<\/p>\n Ray Cortines:<\/strong> I think the educational staff needs to be listened to. My first year in New York I held 30 community meetings with interpreters. People said that New Yorkers weren\u2019t interested in education; there were never less than 300 people in any one of those meetings. What I did was I didn\u2019t start talking. For the first 40 minutes I just listened. And then we got back to them and I told them my focus. Travis Miller<\/strong>: We should probably let you get to work.<\/p>\n Ray Cortines:<\/strong> No. No, it\u2019s okay. It\u2019s been a quiet morning. Always as superintendent, principals called me, teachers called me. I \u2013<\/p>\n Travis Miller:<\/strong> Teachers called you?<\/p>\n Ray Cortines:<\/strong> Oh yes.<\/p>\n Travis Miller: <\/strong>As superintendent?<\/p>\n Ray Cortines:<\/strong> Sure. I work for them. [Day] Haguchi can tell you that. The current union president, Duffy, told me, \u201cI didn\u2019t know you when you were superintendent but let me tell you what a teacher had to say about you, you took her call at 6:30 in the morning.\u201d That\u2019s what I\u2019m saying. Antero Garcia: <\/strong>Those aren\u2019t the conditions we\u2019re seeing in our schools and the district isn\u2019t making the effort to move toward those kinds of conditions.<\/p>\n Ray Cortines:<\/strong> They\u2019re not, and that\u2019s part of the reason that I\u2019m working with the partnership schools to do that.<\/p>\n Travis Miller: <\/strong>We have a small learning community and we started it three years ago. It\u2019s just amazing how we\u2019ve got a number of like-minded teachers who want to work hard in the right direction and our small learning community mirrors what you\u2019re talking about at a large district level. In my experience I\u2019d never imagine the district working like that because \u2013 as you say \u2013 it uses the excuse that we\u2019re too big, and we simply can\u2019t look at this stuff.<\/p>\n Ray Cortines: <\/strong>I bend the rules. I was never illegal, but boy did I bend the rules. You have to. I just think that so many people forget what a child looks like and what a child needs. Travis Miller: <\/strong>Our school went wall-to-wall: 4,500 students into nine small learning communities and a lot of great things happened. Because they weren\u2019t all successful small learning communities in the first nine months, a lot of the administration said that clearly this wasn\u2019t working and quickly began to move away from small learning communities Ray Cortines<\/strong>: But what the administrators were doing before wasn\u2019t working either. It takes nine months just to birth a baby, and then they grow forever. I also had administrators when I was a teacher that allowed me to stub my toe, to make mistakes, and to take risks. I believe in that. I would be the first one to be on your class and raising hell, but once you explain to me I would understand. I\u2019m not as patient as I should be; I admit it. It\u2019s clear you need more time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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\nBy Travis Miller and Antero Garcia
\nWhatever happened to the plan to kill off LAUSD\u2019s central office? Why can\u2019t every administration draw upon the local expertise of their teachers? Why can\u2019t teachers be a part of the perpetual shopping sprees undertaken on our behalf? Shouldn\u2019t we be consulted before they purchase the latest round of training, scripted curricula, or state-aligned textbooks? Everything LAUSD does in is \u201cin the students best interest,\u201d right? So if they are not talking to us, how do they know what the students need? As out of classroom spending soars and six-figure non-teaching positions proliferate, we thought it was time remind the veterans and inform the new teachers of how Roy Romer and Company double-crossed the students and taxpayers of Los Angeles. In our interview with Ramon Cortines we find one of America\u2019s most experienced administrators (and teachers) considering these issues. Ray touches upon the troubled relationship between administrators and teachers, the intent behind Open Court, the promise of decentralization, and what made him a successful principal.<\/p>\n
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\nIn San Francisco, when I was superintendent, I taught twice a year \u2013 all day. Let me tell you, it was the hardest work I did in the year.<\/p>\n
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\nOne of the things I put into local offices was arts people. I feel strongly about arts and the sciences for all levels of children. You\u2019re not going to be a literate, well balanced individual if all we emphasize is reading and math, because that\u2019s not what life\u2019s about. Life is about thinking, solving problems, being able to make decisions.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019ve been to look at the Green Dot schools and the Alliance schools to see what they do to help kids be successful. I think those schools do it better. I think that\u2019s the way that Title I funding should be used. That\u2019s the way No Child Left Behind money should be used.<\/p>\n
\nMany teachers \u2013 many of us \u2013 want to be encouraged to be entrepreneurs. I think that in doing that you avoid burn out. You avoid the boredom and the rigidity.<\/p>\n
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\nAdministrators get an arrogance about them and it\u2019s hard to cut through that. They get caught up in the trappings. They don\u2019t understand that you, as teachers, are at the top of the hierarchy. They\u2019re supposed to be there to help you. If you were like me as an unorthodox teacher you did need to be reminded about rules and regulations every now and then, but it\u2019s how they\u2019re doing it.<\/p>\n
\nRay Cortines:<\/strong> Yes. I don\u2019t believe anybody\u2019s completely autonomous, even in your classroom. We do have to follow a certain standard. I\u2019ll take the standards, but don\u2019t tell me how to implement them. I would get bored at teaching the same thing. I would say in one year to give me the high achievers and the next year to give me the low achievers or to give me the in between. I never wanted the same. I didn\u2019t think teaching the gifted and talented kids meant that I had arrived, professionally. Probably the best education I was engaged in was with low and reluctant learners.<\/p>\n
\nI set goals for every elementary school to identify gifted students. I also set goals of having these numbers go up each year. I wanted the principal to work with the teachers, especially for poor kids. See, that\u2019s insidious racism and remember most of the principals were mid-career and most of them were white.<\/p>\n
\nIf I were taking over a school, I would create forums or focus groups where I listened to you. It\u2019s very difficult to be dumped on for an hour and a half, day after day after day, but it needs to happen. We\u2019re demoralized as teachers, as administrators, as parents, as a district. Part of the reason when I was here that it was successful was I was a fierce defender of this system. Don\u2019t tell me it was going to hell in basket. I might tell you that, because we\u2019re colleagues, but the outsiders that aren\u2019t there every day, they don\u2019t know how we\u2019re busting our butts. That\u2019s what I would do. It\u2019s about listening to people.
\n[The phone rings]<\/p>\n
\nI want school systems to be responsible to the clients. Students and teachers are the clients. I can\u2019t improve academic achievement. You can. And a student can. It\u2019s between a teacher and a student. We need to create the conditions that are optimal for you to improve academic achievement. I will never get off of academic achievement and that kids can learn and progress, but it is creating the conditions, it is allowing you to have a voice \u2013 whether it\u2019s pink paper or white paper. It\u2019s allowing you to have a voice that, even though this is the adopted text book, this supplemental reader is better for these students. It is allowing you to say, \u201cHey, I\u2019ll use the textbook, but not all of the time. I\u2019m going to use the newspaper in this class and magazines.\u201d It is allowing you to look at the standards in a science class but encouraging kids to be creative and you almost blow up the place.<\/p>\n
\nA school is not a prison. A school is not a straightjacket. [pause] Are they going to start other small learning communities in your school?<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\nTell people this is awesome:<\/h3>