Teachers Protest Merit Pay Proposal

More than 2,000 teachers gathered at Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters Tuesday to decry a labor contract proposal offered by interim Supt. Ramon C. Cortines that for the first time would link teachers’ pay to performance.

Chanting, “The district says take-backs, we say fight back!” teachers from schools as far away as San Pedro arrived downtown by the busload to oppose the proposal to rate their performance with test scores, as well as Cortines’ plan to take away teachers’ authority to elect coordinators and department chairmen.

Standing on a tabletop and shouting to be heard over the angry cries of the crowd, United Teachers-Los Angeles President Day Higuchi read a synopsis of the district’s proposal, then ripped it in half, saying, “That’s what I think of them.

“Ray Cortines adds insult to injury by throwing a pointless merit pay scheme our way,” he said. “We have three words for this: ‘No way, Ray!’ ”

In an interview, Higuchi said: “The district’s proposal looks like a declaration of war. It seems to want us to go on strike.”

On one level, the protests are typical of the maneuvering that often occurs early in labor talks. But the outpouring underscored the degree to which Cortines’ proposals have struck at issues that are hot buttons for many union activists.

Also addressing the crowd was school board member Julie Korenstein, who received loud applause when she denounced the merit pay proposal. “There was never any question in my mind, merit pay doesn’t work. It stinks,” she said.

The proposal, set for a board vote April 11, would establish the Stanford 9 standardized test as the primary measure of teachers’ performance. It would provide a foundation for the increased accountability that Cortines says must be created if the public is to have confidence in the schools.

Cortines was unavailable for comment Tuesday. Assistant Supt. Bob Collins said only, “We’re anxious to negotiate with UTLA and reach a fair agreement for everyone.”

On another matter, representatives from a coalition of political and labor leaders urged the school board Tuesday to conduct a complete environmental review and cost analysis of the $200-million Belmont Learning Complex.

Coalition members argued that the board had erred by abandoning the project without having enough information to make a responsible decision.

A complete analysis, they said, would help determine how the project compares with alternative sites presented to the board Tuesday by Howard Miller, the district’s chief operating officer.

Miller named 13 possible alternatives, which he said would provide room for about 18,000 seats--more than triple the number the Belmont complex would offer.

He said environmental problems could be cleaned up within a year for about $1 million per site. Moreover, he said, new high schools with a full range of facilities could be constructed at each site within about four years using money from the district’s $2.4-billion Proposition BB bond fund, and not district general funds.

The proposed options include the former Ambassador Hotel, a parking lot at Dodger Stadium, the district’s downtown headquarters and an adult school where about 10,000 immigrants now study English.

The district already has encountered resistance to several of the sites. The Dodgers have told school officials that building on the stadium parking lot is impractical. City Councilman Nate Holden strongly opposes a high school at the Ambassador. Two weeks ago, 1,000 protesters marched on district headquarters to demand that the idea of converting Evans Community Adult School into a high school be dropped.

Most board members have said they remain strongly opposed to reviving the Belmont project.

Nonetheless, the citizen committee that oversees the Proposition BB fund is to vote Thursday on a resolution that would hold up approval of funding on alternatives--including new school construction--until environmental and financial studies on Belmont are completed.

“Every effort must be made to build Belmont safely and economically,” said Michael Lehrer, vice chairman of the Proposition BB oversight committee. “If the Belmont site is not remediable, then we can forget about a vast majority of the potential sites in this city.”

In another development, the management firm for the construction bond fund said Tuesday that it planned to go to court this morning to block release of an audit by L.A. Unified Inspector General Don Mullinax that is expected to criticize the company’s fees. Attorneys for 3D/I-O’Brien Kreitzberg said they believe, after reviewing a draft, that the audit is seriously flawed. The firm also will petition for $1.6 million in damages that it says the controversy has caused to its reputation.