Competition Intense in Super Bowl of Learning

The contest to be staged in an East Los Angeles gymnasium today has nothing to do with muscle or brawn. It has to do with brains--as well as the will to win.

The occasion is the Los Angeles school district’s Academic Decathlon, which begins at 8 a.m. at Roosevelt High School. In the five years since it was launched, the citywide decathlon has become as fiercely competitive as any athletic tournament. It is one of many such events being held around the country today, including the decathlon at Warren High School in Downey for 56 high schools in Los Angeles County.

During an early-morning practice session this week, Palisades High School Coach Rose Gilbert beat her elbows on the podium and stamped her feet as she drilled her team on music history, one of the areas that will be tested.

‘Get That Into Your Heads’

“Honey, we’ve got to move our tushies,” she said, moving briskly through a pile of notes on famous composers from Brahms to Bernstein. “Remember, Johannes Brahms is a romantic. Get that into your heads. . . .”

For months, six-member teams at the district’s 49 high schools and four magnet and special schools have been poring over copious notes and flashcards, committing to memory minutiae relating to six academic subjects and immigration, the topic of this year’s Super Quiz.

This year the 53 teams are competing under controversial new guidelines. Previously, the teams were chosen on the basis of test scores and teacher recommendations and had to include two A students, two B students and two C students. Those rules still apply. But in June,the Los Angeles school board added a new policy stating that the teams

“should reflect” the composition of the schools’ student bodies by race and sex.

The policy was formulated in response to criticism that the decathlon was dominated by mostly white male teams from Westside and West San Fernando Valley schools--schools, the critics noted, that are 40% to 50% minority.

The policy is more lenient than an earlier one adopted by the board that would have required teams to be representative by sex and race. The earlier version came under attack for appearing to establish a quota system and was protested most loudly at top-ranked Palisades, the decathlon winner for four straight years.

Teams Pass Review

But all of this year’s teams passed a review conducted by the senior high school division, according to Assistant Supt. Dan Isaacs. Although no school was asked to specify the composition of its team, each principal had to submit a written report describing efforts made to include all ethnic groups and both sexes. Isaacs said he is satisfied that the schools made “efforts of a sincere nature” to abide by the new policy.

Although school district officials denied that Palisades was being targeted, members of the Palisades team bristled at the mention of the new policy, which, they said, was intended to hurt their chances for a fifth championship year. “It’s reverse racism,” said one member, a white female who did not want to be identified.

Palisades, in Pacific Palisades, has a student body that is almost 50% black and other minorities. School officials said there have been some non-whites and females on its previous teams, but they declined to specify how many. This year’s squad has three girls and one black.

Palisades’ team members said they are as determined as ever to win, however. And the team to beat, they said, is Dorsey High School in Central Los Angeles.

Super Quiz Winners

For three out of the four years, Dorsey has won the Super Quiz, considered the premier event because it is the only one open to the public. (The quiz begins at 3 p.m.) Dorsey’s team has not fared as well overall, however. Last year, it came in fifth in the decathlon, behind Palisades, University, Chatsworth and North Hollywood high schools.

The ethnic and sex guidelines were not an issue with Dorsey’s team, which is all black except for one Asian and evenly split between the sexes. But team captain Lynnette Darrell, a senior who gave up a job to be on the squad, sees the contest as a chance to prove something. “People don’t expect that much from black teams,” she said. “We just want to uphold the reputation that Dorsey has already established.”

The team was holed up in Coach Dan Spetner’s classroom literally from dawn to dark every day for the past week. Other teachers and students stocked a refrigerator in the room with soft drinks and snacks so that Spetner, who is president of the Los Angeles Academic Decathlon Coaches’ Organization, could keep the pressure on all day long without having to run out for meals.

On Thursday he was throwing out questions about immigration at a relentless pace. And, more often than not, the team responded before he could finish.

They knew, for instance, that 1921 was the year that the first law was passed restricting the number of immigrants who could be admitted to the United States. They also knew that the National Origins System was adopted three years later, limiting immigration for various ethnic groups according to their proportion in the population in 1920. And they knew that the system was replaced with a more liberal policy in 1965.

During a pause in the practice, Spetner said to a visitor, “You know why we beat Pali in the Super Quiz? Because we work hard. My people are not going to be worried on the day of the competition because they’re prepared.”

There were nervous laughs all the way around the room.

The winners will be announced Thursday at a banquet at the Bonaventure.