Cortines targets dropout rate at L.A. Unified
The new deputy chief also says he may revisit the phonics reading program and wants to shrink district bureaucracy.
Dealing with its alarmingly high dropout rate should be a higher priority than test scores for the Los Angeles Unified School District, Ramon C. Cortines said in his first interview since being named senior deputy superintendent Tuesday.
Because students who drop out often are low achievers, he warned, keeping them in school could well impede -- at least initially -- a rise in test scores.
Indicating that he planned to shake up things, Cortines, 75, said he also would revisit the phonics-based reading program he helped install eight years ago, work to shrink and decentralize the district's much-criticized bureaucracy, improve science and arts instruction and increase student access to college-prep classes.
And he pledged greater openness, saying the district needed to acknowledge its failures as the prelude to addressing them.
"People in the district are afraid if it is bad news," Cortines said. "I'm not afraid. If we don't know what the facts are, how can we prescriptively design an instruction program that meets the needs of the kids?"
Cortines drew widespread praise in 2000 when he served as interim superintendent for six months after the Board of Education ousted then-Supt. Ruben Zacarias.
This time around, he said, his goal is to support Supt. David L. Brewer, who has faced nagging questions about his own performance and an impatient school board. Brewer, a retired vice admiral, had no background in K-12 education before his hiring 17 months ago.
Civic leaders and school board members praised Brewer for his willingness to hire a high-profile, plain-speaking independent as second in command. Cortines has vastly more education experience than his new boss, having headed school districts in New York City, San Francisco, San Jose and Pasadena.
"We needed someone with instruction expertise," board member Marlene Canter said. "This appointment shows that Supt. Brewer puts students' interests ahead of any other agenda."
Cortines says he is motivated by the education challenge alone and has no interest in overshadowing the superintendent. Cortines, who will make $250,000 a year, agreed to an at-will contract, meaning Brewer can dismiss him without notice.
Last year, at a public forum, Cortines complained about how the district's "bureaucracy" was withholding tallies of dropouts. Within days of applying public pressure, Cortines got the statistics he sought, but said he remained dissatisfied with the quality and coherence of information.
