COVER STORY : Raising Compton’s Bottom Line : New Administrator Has a History of Turning Scores--and Heads

Jerome Harris, the new state-appointed administrator of the Compton Unified School District, scanned the angry crowd in the school board meeting hall.

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In the front row sat school board members who were doing a slow burn because the state has taken away their powers and given them to Harris. Behind them were parents frustrated over schools that are falling apart and employees bitter over layoffs and proposed pay cuts.

Facing this sea of distrust was Harris, who four days earlier had been a college professor in Brooklyn. Now, at his first school board meeting, he was about to say something that was sure to make some people even angrier.

“What we’re doing to kids in this system is almost criminal,” he said as the room grew quiet.

Using an overhead projector, he displayed a graph that used several lines to represent student achievement in California. The lowest line showed student achievement in Compton.

“It’s hard to see because it’s right on the bottom,” said Harris, dressed immaculately in a charcoal suit, pressed white shirt and red bow tie.

Harris then projected graphs measuring student achievement in others ways, such as among black students and among Latino students.

“Here’s Compton. It’s on the bottom,” he said and then twice more. “It’s on the bottom. It’s on the bottom. . . There isn’t nobody learning--not much.”

And the problem, he said, is with the adults, including those in the boardroom. To think otherwise would be to suggest that black children can’t learn, that Latino children can’t learn, that poor people can’t learn.

“And if you believe that, you shouldn’t be in the room.”

John Jerome Harris was not about to walk out of the room. When Harris is in charge, he says that all children will learn. And he doesn’t particularly care what it takes or which adults he offends if they prove to be obstacles.

For teachers, this has meant standing up to teach--because Harris believes you can’t be inspiring from a chair. Principals have had to tolerate impromptu, frequent visits from the top man. And school board members who hired Harris discovered an administrator who sometimes treated them like underlings. Such traits helped get Harris fired in Atlanta, and have earned him such labels as “arrogant” and “domineering.”

But like him or not, Harris has done what some researchers say is virtually impossible. The 62-year-old school administrator has gone into urban school districts filled with poor, minority students and raised student scores on standardized tests.

Improving those scores “is probably the toughest thing to do in education,” said one researcher.

That track record helped persuade the California Department of Education that Harris was the man to turn around Compton Unified, a district of 27,300 students where test scores are typically the worst in the state. The scores showed no improvement in the latest round of statewide tests, which were released this week.

Compton Unified came under state control last July, as a condition for granting the struggling school system an emergency loan. Initially, the state’s main job was to restore the district’s financial health, but the Legislature subsequently ordered officials to improve Compton’s academic programs.

The state placed a retired superintendent in charge of the Compton schools while conducting a nationwide search for a long-term administrator.

After years of criticizing the performance of Compton Unified, state education officials now are on the spot to show that they can do better.

Enter Harris--who took over as the long-term administrator last month.

In Brooklyn, Harris was superintendent of Community School District 13 from 1974 to 1988, during which time its test scores rose from the bottom of the pack to the middle of the heap in the New York City school system.

Test scores also rose in Atlanta during Harris’ two-year tenure as superintendent. They declined after he left in 1990 and became an education consultant in New York.

Ironically, the Atlanta school board fired Harris just one month after the district trumpeted gains in student achievement.

“He treated school board members like they were his employees and some of them took exception to that,” explained one Atlanta school official. Other critics said Harris ran the district like a virtual dictator and demanded too much from employees.

Harris said he merely tried to change what needed changing.

The North Carolina native has an engaging, folksy style that is unusual in the profession of education, where administrators toss off mind-numbing jargon like it was a job requirement. But his smooth manner belies an uncompromising orneriness.

“When I was growing up we could blame ‘the Man’ and say that ‘the Man’ did this to us,” Harris said after taking the Atlanta job. “Now we have black mayors, black superintendents and black school boards . . . but they have not made a difference, not in Chicago, Newark, Detroit, Cleveland, nor in Atlanta. I can no longer blame ‘the Man.’ In Atlanta, now I am ‘the Man.’ ”

His school district motto for 1989 in Atlanta was, “Turn up the heat.” Teachers and administrators complained that at any moment Harris might show up in their offices and classrooms, looking over their shoulders, commenting on their work.

“We didn’t like teachers being embarrassed,” said Audrey Butts, president of the Atlanta Assn. of Educators. “You don’t go into a teacher’s classroom and tell them in front of their class that they’re not doing right. It was terrible for morale.”

Harris directed teachers to write their goals for every lesson on the board at the start of class, both to focus teachers’ efforts and to let students know exactly what was expected of them.

“You write down on the board what you expect the child to be able to do after having sat in your class for 30 minutes,” said Chicago public schools Supt. Argie Johnson, who worked for Harris in New York. “For example, students will be able to reassemble a torso of the human body with 90% accuracy.”

Teachers and principals who consistently received poor marks faced dismissal. Harris would judge teachers by their ability to make their classes interesting and effective. Ultimately, he said he had no complaint with good teachers or those who were improving. Principals who could not get their teachers to perform found their own job security fragile.

In Compton, Harris already has given principals a three-page checklist for evaluating teachers. Is the teacher assigning homework? Can students summarize what they’ve learned at the end of the lesson? Does the teacher have weekly lesson plans?

Former Atlanta administrator Mae A. Kendall tells the story of a music coordinator who repeatedly resisted Harris’ plans to expand and improve the music program. How could Harris expect so much when she didn’t even have a computer to work with, the music coordinator complained.

Harris showed up unannounced at the coordinator’s office several days later to deliver a computer workstation.

“He sat down in her office and said: ‘Now what is your excuse?’ and she had none,” Kendall said.

“Dr. Harris was a difficult personality to work with,” said Emmett Johnson, president of the Atlanta Council of PTAs. “But I looked at what was being done and I could live with the personality.

“Many parents wish that they could get him back.”

Harris still owns a house in Atlanta and considers the city his permanent home. But he is no stranger to Southern California. He worked from 1960 to 1970 as a teacher and vice principal at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles. He received his doctorate in education from the Claremont Graduate School in 1973.

At his first Compton school board meeting, Harris stressed that trying hard, though commendable, would no longer be enough.

All that matters is results: higher test scores, lower dropout rates, more admissions to college. That attitude was something Harris first learned at home. His father was a college professor. His mother earned a master’s degree and taught elementary school.

“Force times distance equals work,” the former science teacher reminded his audience. “If you push on it till you die and it doesn’t move, then you haven’t produced work. We haven’t produced the results.

“If the students are down, we’re down,” he added. “They will do better when we do better.”

The talk by Harris received mixed reviews. Some thought he delivered a needed, encouraging dose of reality. Others considered his words a slap at the district’s parents and employees.

“I don’t see Dr. Harris working for the interests of African American and Latino students,” said board member Amen Rahh, who has accused state and county officials of conspiring to rape the district of its financial resources. “The state of California hates African Americans and Latinos. I see him in the same light as the Uncle Toms throughout history, until he proves that he’s not one.”

Kalem Aquil, a longtime parent volunteer and district critic, was unmoved after hearing Harris address a community gathering.

“They always say, ‘I’m here for the kids,’ ” he said. “I could have written that speech for him.”

Several days later, Harris was paying unannounced, spot visits to five schools with Acting Supt. Harold L. Cebrun, who works directly under Harris.

The two men would check in briefly at the principal’s office, then start roaming about. Principals at some schools were so edgy that they never let Harris and Cebrun out of sight.

One assistant principal apologized profusely when the principal was not in the office to greet Harris. “She’s walking the campus,” he told Harris.

“That’s the best place for her,” Harris replied.

“I’m not trying to catch them doing wrong,” he said later. “I’m trying to help them.” Harris said the help will include extensive training for the staff already in place. “I try to grow my own professionals,” he said.

At Compton’s Davis Middle School and other campuses, Harris casually introduced himself to administrators, teachers, cafeteria workers and children. And he directed Cebrun to take notes of their concerns.

A first-year teacher at Washington Elementary described how discouraged he was after his room had been broken into four times, twice within the previous week. Vandals had ransacked the class and covered it with graffiti. The teacher also showed Harris three leaks where rain runoff was coming in.

Harris directed Cebrun to have someone see if the leaks could be repaired. “The man’s a new teacher,” Harris said. “It does his morale 118% of good if someone comes out and looks at the problem.”

A cafeteria worker at another school complained about the dark eating area.

“I bet if you got up there and raised those blinds it wouldn’t be so dark,” he told her. “I don’t know why they’re closed.”

“Maybe to hide the dirt on the windows,” the worker said.

“You can’t hide the dirt,” Harris said with a smile before moving on.

At Centennial High, he flagged down three late-arriving 11th-graders. “Do you think you’re going to make 12th grade and graduate?” he asked.

They said they were.

“You won’t if you don’t get to school,” he said.

The students were silent, unsure if they were in trouble.

But Harris, not in the mood to pick a fight, waved them on. “Nice to meet you ladies. Glad you got this far.”

Harris, who has six grown children, enjoys talking with students. It is for their sake, he said, that he postponed retirement, left his East Coast home and came to Southern California with his wife Earlene, a former school teacher and administrator.

“These are my kids,” he said. “This is my future. This is where the action is.”

The state is expected to remain in charge of the Compton schools for at least three years--until the district can make a financial and academic turnaround. Harris, who will earn $109,500 a year, has not said how long he plans to stay or exactly how he will change things.

At Brooklyn’s School District 13, Harris set up academies in his middle schools with specialties such as math, journalism and art. All students applied to one or more academies and all were accepted into a program. The goal was to cultivate students’ talents, increase their interest in school and provide more counseling for students and their families. In Atlanta, he put handpicked teams in charge of improving low-achieving schools and also organized parent and teacher task forces.

In recent years, while a professor at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, he headed a program to improve New York area school systems.

But can Harris find the right remedy to help Compton?

The district, with an annual budget of about $92.4 million, is burdened with $20 million worth of debt from emergency state loans. The financial mire has resulted in disruptive layoffs and pay cuts that have plunged morale as low as Death Valley.

Beyond that, racially tinged brawls have broken out between Latino and African American students in the district, which is 59% Latino, 39% African American. About a third of district students speak limited English. At some campuses, nearly all children are on public assistance of some sort.

And the aging schools are falling apart, a process hastened by thieves, firebugs and graffiti vandals who have done millions of dollars in damage.

But just as disquieting is what occurred during Harris’ recent visit to an elementary school.

A fourth-grader on recess had stepped forward to help Harris find his way around.

She pointed out the principal’s office and a boy she had taught how to do cartwheels. She warned Harris to be quiet as he went through one particular wing because teachers were giving tests.

She was the model of wit, charm and awareness until Harris asked her if she was as smart as a boy who had just answered a question in a class Harris was observing.

A cloud came over the girl’s face. She explained that she was not as smart, that she was in a lower group.

Harris bristled, but kept his smile in place till he started walking back to his car. For him, that girl was an example of how Compton needed to change. That child was becoming a victim of a system that had too little hope for what she could do with her life. Schools must set higher standards, he said.

“With all that child has going for her, she’s already conceded that she’s in a lower group,” he said quietly. “She’s as smart as any child out here and as smart as anybody needs to be.”

When he spoke to the restive crowd at the school board meeting, Harris also set a high standard for himself.

“If I don’t have better results in a year then I’ll leave. Or you ought to have me leave.”

Record in Atlanta

Percentage of students scoring at or above national norms:

Before Harris During Harris After Harris 1988 1990 1993 Reading 44% 52% 45% Math 50% 58% 47%

Source: Department of Research and Evaluation, Atlanta Public Schools

Record in Brooklyn

Percentage of students scoring above their grade level in Brooklyn’s District 13 and New York City as a whole:

Before Harris During Harris After Harris 1974 1988 1993 Dist. 13 NYC Dist. 13 NYC Dist. 13 NYC Grade 5 Reading 23.9% 36.9% 56.1% 57.6% 52.3% 55.2% Grade 5 Math 29.3% 43.9% 65.0% 64.6% 48.2% 54.9% Grade 8 Reading 10.9% 29.3% 42.2% 46.8% 44.6% 46.8% Grade 8 Math 12.0% 31.7% 38.1% 42.7% 35.8% 43.2%

The chart shows that before Jerome Harris became superintendent of Community School District 13, its test scores lagged far behind those of other New York City area school systems. During his tenure, the school district essentially caught up by improving its scores faster than other school systems. After Harris left, District 13 held onto most of its gains.

Source: Office of Educational Research, New York City Board of Education