Just what a dizzy school district needs -- more spin

It's too bad Los Angeles Unified School District officials didn't make the first assignment for their new spin doctors spinning the news that they've hired spin doctors.

The district's fledgling public relations effort stumbled this week, when news leaked out that Supt. David Brewer handed out contracts worth more than $350,000 a year to a team of consultants charged with improving the district's public image.

Team leader and former Telemundo news director Victor Abalos says he's a not PR man, but a broker of "communication strategies" for "target audiences" that will help the district get its good news to a disenchanted public.

I'm not going to pile on here. It's almost too easy to bash a district that graduates barely half of its students, can't pay its teachers properly and on time, yet seems to think its biggest problem is its poor public image.

I actually think it's a good idea for a complex organization the size of L.A. Unified to have a solid, intelligent and honest communication strategy -- one that aims to illuminate, not manipulate.

I'm sure we'd all like to see more good news stories, like the choir performing at Disney Hall, the winning Academic Decathlon team, the former engineer with two graduate degrees just named state Teacher of the Year.

But I imagine Mr. Abalos' target audience will also expect answers to questions like these: Why is it taking so long to fix the payroll system? Why do half the students at some high schools drop out? Whatever happened to the district's big plans for reform? And where is my tax money going?

Six months ago, Abalos said, he saw the district "like everybody else: this huge bloated bureaucracy that's failing students." Now that he's part of that huge, bloated bureaucracy, his assessment is less harsh.

The district "doesn't work as well as it should," he said. "The problem is the kids need to get a better education. . . . But success breeds success. If everybody thinks you're a failure, why would you want to fight hard for a team that sucks?"

A frenetic fast-talker who peppered his interview with me using street slang and marketing terms, Abalos spent the bulk of his career in newsrooms, leaving the business several years ago to do "social marketing" for nonprofit groups.