Help for Compton Schools Runs Into a Buzzword Buzz Saw

Since the state runs the Compton schools, you’d think that somebody in Sacramento would understand how badly this impoverished district needs computers.

Wrong. Compton called for help, but nobody answered.

Its application for $320,815 for computers and other technology failed, buried in the bureaucratic bog of the state Department of Education, which several years ago took over the district and is now responsible for restoring it.

The issue wasn’t whether Compton needed the money. Nobody acquainted with the district could deny its poverty or its lack of the high-tech gear needed to train youngsters for today’s economy.

Rather, Compton lost out on literary grounds. Its grant writers were not adept at the tortured English of grantsmanship, where victory goes to the author who can best string together the right education buzzwords.

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The education department took over Compton schools four years ago after spendthrift and inefficient school board members and administrators let the district drift into bankruptcy.

A succession of state-appointed administrators have tried to revive the district with varying degrees of success. Recently, in an effort to obtain more computers, Compton applied for federal funds, which are distributed through the state. The money is designed to put more computers in the poorest school districts.

Instructions on how to fill out the applications are a nit-picker’s dream.

For example, applications could be no longer than 25 pages, double-spaced and written in 10-point type or larger.

There’s more than mechanics to these grant applications. You’ve got to talk the talk.

Judges in grant contests like vague concepts, expressed in bureaucratic cliches. Terms like “public-private partnerships” always strike a chord. So do references to community involvement.

Such words create a politically correct image of people working together, hand in hand and, most important, avoiding any controversy.

As the contest approached, there was concern in the state education department that Compton might need help in filling out the application. Education department official Jackie Lamb, formerly of the Compton district, was dispatched there from Sacramento. “I spent a day down there with them,” Lamb told me. “I told them how to do it, what was needed, broke it down into pieces for them.”

State officials said they also arranged for county experts to help Compton write its proposal.

But when the educators on the panel judging the applications rendered their verdicts, Compton was too far down to receive a grant.

Glen Thomas, manager of the education department’s education technology office, said the judges felt that the Compton district did not show how computers would be used to improve teaching of basic subjects.

I asked Thomas why the state education department couldn’t give Compton a break, since it is responsible for the district and has pledged to revive it.

“The department is in a delicate situation,” he said. “We want to help Compton as much as we can. We also have to administer this program in a fair way and there is a delicacy on how much you can help this one district and be fair.”

Compton officials aren’t the only ones who are unhappy with the outcome.

Los Angeles County schools Supt. Donald W. Ingwerson said the grant process passed over more than 100,000 poor children in the county, including Compton, who now will be denied computers and software the program was designed to provide.

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Playing the blame game isn’t really the point.

When State Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin, who heads the education department, took charge of Compton, it was as if she had adopted a child with many problems. Such a kid needs special care, and the new parent must provide it.

This didn’t happen in Compton, at least in this case.

And to think that Eastin and other Sacramento politicians are asking for a mandate to “reform” schools in the entire state when they are failing the one district they now control, Compton.