Snubbing the Schools

When Randolph Ward arrives at his job running the Compton schools, he comes with a bodyguard who picks him up every morning and drives him home at night.

The bodyguard, a beefy man from a special California Highway Patrol division in charge of protecting state officials, sits patiently outside Ward’s modest office and accompanies him on all school business.

Ward’s need for protection is stark evidence of the raw emotions laid bare in Compton over who should be in charge of the city’s beleaguered schools.

The bodyguard is also an indication of just how divisive politics can be in Compton--a climate at least partially responsible for the defeat Tuesday of a school bond issue.

The state took over Compton’s schools five years ago after the district fell $20 million into debt and sought another state bailout.

State officials agreed to the loan, but only if local officials--who had driven the district into near bankruptcy while student performance sank to abysmal depths--were stripped of all power.

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In Compton, students were attending classes in decrepit buildings with leaky roofs. Some buildings had boarded-up windows and bathrooms where sewage backed up and urinals had been torn off the walls. The average school in Compton is more than 50 years old.

In September, the district allocated $8.7 million for emergency repairs, but the list of work that is needed adds up to $140 million. That’s a large amount for a district with an annual budget of $150 million for 29,400 students.

To pay for the repairs, the district asked Compton voters Tuesday to approve the first school bond measure in nearly 30 years. Measure A would have generated $107 million for projects at 34 of the district’s 38 schools. But the bond, which needed two-thirds of the vote to pass, got only 55% approval.

Its failure underlines the deep fissures running through this town over local control of the troubled school district. Many residents feel insulted that the state has repeatedly said locally elected school board officials are not competent to run the district.

State officials have won few friends by noting that before the state seized control, the school district was part of a lucrative fiefdom controlled by local politicians and district employees. Officials of the district, the largest employer in Compton, handed out jobs and contracts to friends and relatives and loyal political supporters, state officials say.

Angry opponents of Tuesday’s bond issue argued that they were being asked to approve funds to be spent by a state-appointed school administrator--a man they painted as having dictatorial powers over the seven-member advisory school board.

Ward countered he would appoint a citizen advisory committee to oversee the spending, but that promise did not satisfy enough voters.

Supporters of the bond issue “underestimated the intelligence of the community,” said an indignant Melvin Stokes, who campaigned door-to-door against the measure on election eve. “The people could not stand another tax increase.”

Compton Mayor Omar Bradley used the bond issue to hammer home his point that local control was the only way to go for Compton’s schools.

The bond proponents were painted as sophisticated carpetbaggers who spent more than $47,000 to pass the measure. Bradley and his followers said they spent nothing but telephone time, shoe leather and $40 on 1,500 fliers.

“This school bond is being supported by people in the district who don’t even live in Compton,” Bradley said, noting that Ward lives in Long Beach. “They wanted to increase our taxes and give them to a man who has no connectedness to the city and who could do whatever he chose. We would have had no redress on the matter.”

Bradley, never a man to hide his emotions, was so jubilant over the defeat of the bond that he stopped by the campaign headquarters for bond supporters after midnight Wednesday. Standing just outside the front door, he pointed to his watch and said: “Your time is up.”

The mayor has vowed to mount a recall campaign against the four school board members who supported the measure.

The bond’s proponents, encouraged by the 55% approval vote, said they will learn from their mistakes and put another bond measure on the November ballot.

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When the state selected Ward to rescue Compton’s schools, he knew that somehow he would have to develop ways of keeping a hostile cadre of local elected officials at bay. The rescue is a long way from complete, and the local officials are as hostile as ever.

Some residents complain that the state has had ample time to correct the financial and academic woes that made Compton’s schools among the worst in the state.

But nothing has changed, they say, arguing that the schools are even worse.

Compton students continue to have some of the worst SAT scores in the state, and those scores have slipped consistently over the last five years.

The district still owes the state $16 million, and the dropout rate has doubled in recent years.

“All the reasons and all the issues that prompted the state to take over the district still exist,” said Bradley, a vocal opponent of the state takeover who has vowed that the school district will return to local control by the end of the year.

But the state says that it won’t even think of returning the schools to local control before the beginning of the next century.

“The district was so poorly managed over such a long time that I don’t think you can fix it overnight,” said state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin.

Ward, 41, was recruited in late 1996 from the Long Beach school district to become Compton’s fifth state-appointed administrator in four years.

“I had to pick my jaw up after my first tour,” said Ward, who grew up in a Roxbury, Mass., a community with a mix of African Americans and Latinos similar to Compton.

Before Tuesday’s bond measure went down to defeat, the district had already begun to repair many of its schools. Critics charge that the improvements were launched only after a class-action lawsuit was filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of several parents. Ward said the improvements were scheduled before the lawsuit was filed.

A settlement of that suit required the state to repair deteriorating campuses, staff each classroom with a certified teacher and provide textbooks or copies for every student to take home.

Only 51% of the district’s teachers are certified, and there are still students who do not have textbooks to take home.

But progress is being made, ACLU officials said.

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At Compton High School, built in 1896, a wrought-iron fence has been installed around the 54-acre campus to keep out transients and nonstudents.

Construction has accelerated on a $2-million renovation of the high school’s administration building, which opened in the 1920s. It will have a new library for its 65,000 books, and auditorium seats that haven’t been upgraded in more than 60 years will be reupholstered. There will be new classrooms, new offices, air conditioning and windows that are not cracked or boarded up, said Compton schools spokeswoman Vivien Hao.

Teachers were given a 4% raise last year, bringing starting salaries up to $28,140. In Los Angeles, new teachers start at $31,300.

Ward, the latest state administrator charged with bringing Compton’s schools back from disaster, has so far avoided the office’s revolving door.

Some of his predecessors lasted only a few months, although one remained just over two years.

The job has proved difficult and dangerous. The first state administrator, Stan Oswalt, was shot at one evening on his way to a school board meeting where 113 employees were scheduled to be fired. Now retired, Oswalt, 73, described his seven months with the school district as “just plain hell.”

Before the state took over, a county audit showed that political cronyism, financial mismanagement and too many employees led to the district’s problems.

In addition, a 1990-91 salary settlement giving teachers a 17% pay increase added $9 million a year to an already strained budget.

Ward, who has a master’s degree from Harvard University and a doctorate from USC, has had to work with a rancorous seven-member school board.

Residents complain that two other school districts taken over by the state were returned to local control quickly.

The Richmond school district, now known as West Contra Costa Unified, received two state loans totaling $28.5 million in the early 1990s but was under state administration for only 1 1/2 years.

Coachella Valley Unified School District in Riverside County was put under state administration after it requested a $7.3-million loan in 1992. The school district was returned to local control in 1996.

Ward said he will be only too happy to return Compton schools to local control when the district’s financial and academic problems are solved.

“I didn’t come here to be popular or to make friends,” said Ward, who said he has been so busy he hasn’t been able to take a honeymoon after his recent wedding. “My job is to work myself out of a job, and I’m committed to doing that.”

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Compton SATs

Average SAT scores for Compton School District:Verbal

Math

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1997 State Averages

Verbal: 496

Math: 514

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1997 National Average

Verbal: 505

Math: 511

* Compton Dropout Rates for Grades 9-12

Source: Compton Unified School District