Computers and Cooperation

In an each-one-teach-others approach to increasing computer literacy in schools, an impressive public-private partnership is awarding grants to 25 computer learning centers to train Los Angeles County teachers and parents.

Many teachers don’t know how to get on the Internet or use a database. They need training and access to technology to teach their students and even to keep up with computer-savvy pupils. The learning centers are the latest effort of the ambitious 2-year-old Technology for Learning initiative of the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which is funded by corporations, foundations and individuals. The collaboration’s goals include providing thousands of teachers with computer classes and educational software.

At the computer centers, each newly trained teacher will be expected to train 20 more teachers. Some parents also will benefit.

The collaboration intends to train, directly and indirectly, 60,000 teachers, help ensure the wiring of 50,000 classrooms and help reduce the current dismal 15-to-1 student-to-computer ratio to 4 to 1 in the county’s 81 school districts, including the giant Los Angeles Unified, by the year 2000.

Major funding and support are provided by the AT&T; Foundation; Jan Davidson of Davidson and Associates Inc., a computer software company; Microsoft Corp.; ETC, a subsidiary of the cable company w/tci; the Riordan Foundation; the Los Angeles Times and the Times Mirror Co.

The first 10 centers to receive grants were announced Wednesday: Adtech’s Futures Academy in Redondo Beach; the Baldwin Park branch library; Break Away Technologies in the Crenshaw district; Parent University in Downey; Partners in Technology Training Center in the Antelope Valley; Puente Learning Center in Boyle Heights; Sulphur Springs District Training Center in Canyon Country and three school-based centers in Alhambra, Pomona and San Pedro. An additional 15 will be named this year.

In the end, many more of the county’s 1.5 million public school students will become computer literate, an indispensable skill.