District Hires Tutors, Raising Questions

More than four years after the state took control of Compton’s schools, the Compton Unified School District has signed a $5.4-million contract with a private firm, Sylvan Learning Systems, to tutor students there in reading and math.

Well known to suburban parents seeking to boost their children’s academic skills, Sylvan already operates in more than 100 public schools in cities including Baltimore, Washington, Detroit and Chicago.

But the deal with Compton--to be spotlighted at an open house in a Sylvan-renovated classroom Friday--is the company’s first major one in California and its largest initial contract ever, covering 1,200 students in eight schools. And the arrangement has prompted one State Board of Education member to ask why a public school system has to seek help from a private company that typically sells its services out of mini-mall storefronts.

“If the best and the brightest experts at the California Department of Education . . . have concluded that the Compton public educational system cannot be reformed sufficiently to help low-performing children and the private sector can, this has significant public policy implications,” said Janet Nicholas, who asked state officials to explain the action at the board’s March meeting.

The Los Angeles Unified School District also is on the verge of signing a contract with Sylvan to tutor students after school and during the summer--not during the day, as the firm will do in Compton. Supt. Ruben Zacarias announced this past week that he had set aside $10 million to provide those services in the district’s 100 lowest-performing schools, 75 of which have decided to bring in Sylvan or other tutoring companies.

The Compton contract could have a broader impact, however, because it shows state education officials seeking private sector help for the only school district they control. That fact may provide ammunition for the Wilson administration as it again pushes for a voucher plan to enable students to transfer to private schools from low-performing public ones, such as those in Compton. Gov. Pete Wilson has proposed spending $52 million annually on “opportunity scholarships” for as many as 15,000 students.

Such a program is opposed by teacher unions and state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin. But in the wake of Compton’s move, Dan Edwards, an administration spokesman, argued that it is “massively contradictory” for Eastin “to say we’ll tell you which programs in the private sector are OK . . . but we don’t approve of opportunity scholarships.”

Public school districts frequently hire outside consultants to train teachers and hire contractors to handle a wide variety of chores, such as busing or running cafeterias. And some districts across the country, including one in Chula Vista, have handed over the management of one or more schools to a private firm.

But it is still uncommon for districts to hire outside firms to teach public school children during regular instructional time.

The state education department was given responsibility for the 29,000-student Compton district by the Legislature in mid-1993 as a condition of a $20-million financial bailout. The takeover was seen as an opportunity for the department, which employs education experts but has little real power, to showcase strategies for improving public education in struggling urban areas.

Evidence of a turnaround remains scant, though, and Compton has been a revolving door for administrators--five different ones have been appointed by Eastin to run it. Under terms of the state takeover, they can make reforms without having to get approval from the local elected governing board.

The current appointee, installed 15 months ago, is veteran Long Beach educator Randolph E. Ward. Under his leadership, roofs have been replaced, classrooms painted and other repairs completed at dilapidated campuses. In April, Compton voters will be asked to approve a $107-million bond issue to continue those repairs.

Doug Stone, Eastin’s spokesman, said the state’s top schools official was not aware that her appointee had made the deal with Sylvan. Stone said the arrangement represents a creative gambit.

“This was a district that was run into the ground over a 30-year period, and it is going to take some time to bring it up to the point where we would all like it to be,” he said.

LaVonne Johnson, Compton’s assistant superintendent of operations, said hiring Sylvan was suggested by principals in response to a directive that they come up with an improvement plan. At some schools, she said, more than three-quarters of the students score below the national average in reading.

Like many districts serving poor and minority children, Compton already has numerous special state and federal programs, costing $38 million in 1996. Typically, schools use much of that money to hire classroom aides. The Sylvan contract is an acknowledgment that teaching many children to read and do math may not be as easy as renovating buildings, Johnson said.

“What we’re saying is, the learning process is complex,” she said, “and it’s a harder thing to fix.”

The contract with Sylvan, she said, will provide Compton students, half of whose parents are on welfare and 40% of whom are not fluent in English, access to services typically available only to more affluent families.

Compton will pay for Sylvan’s services with some of the $9.3 million that it receives from Title I, the massive federal education program. Teachers at the eight schools will select the students to be tutored in classrooms renovated by Sylvan to resemble the company’s commercial centers.

During the first year, the focus of the tutoring will be on reading, Johnson said. Whaley Middle School, the only upper grade school participating, will be able to serve 150 students during the day and will offer additional help after school, on Saturdays and possibly during the summer.

Principal Kelsey Richardson said the aim will be to help eighth-graders improve reading comprehension and vocabulary so they can keep up in high school. Students who attend school regularly and whose parents help them with their homework will be given priority for getting into the program, Richardson said.

Students at other schools will get help with even more elementary skills. In groups of three, they will be drilled in phonics and taught strategies to figure out the meaning of words and stories. In math, the tutors identify skills the students lack--often something as basic as recognizing numbers--then use beans or other physical objects to make sure students understand the concepts.

“We go in and find out where the skill broke down and start there,” said Sylvan spokeswoman Vickie Glazar.

The company also will help train Compton teachers in its methods.

The contract represents the first significant West Coast success by Sylvan in a campaign to tap into the potentially lucrative public school market. The company recently purchased a Santa Monica-based professional development firm and has hired an ex-New York superintendent to promote its services to public schools.

“We’re looking at ways not only of addressing the lowest performing students but also to support schools in their overall reform efforts,” Glazar said.

In Baltimore, where Sylvan is based, the firm began working in public schools in 1993 and has been credited with achieving dramatic improvements in math--seven times what is required by the federal government for its own remedial programs, the company says. Progress in reading, however, was only slightly faster than what is expected of federal programs, Glazar said.

Compton will pay about $22 per hour--or $1,500 per student served--for services for which the company typically charges parents about $45 per hour, she said. The contract spells out that the goal of the tutoring is to improve students’ reading test scores a minimum of three points on a scale of 100.

If the company fails to meet the goal, it must provide additional services at no charge. If it still does not succeed, the district can terminate the contract.

“This is the first time [with any program] we have had guarantees, where, if it doesn’t work, we don’t pay,” Johnson said.

Bruce Fuller, a UC Berkeley policy analyst, said such an arrangement may be beneficial, as long as Sylvan is not allowed to evaluate its own performance.

But he cautioned that nationwide evaluations have found little impact from school-operated tutoring programs that pull weaker students out of class for special help.

Moreover, he said, such an arrangement, particularly when it involves a private company, “kind of walls off the problem . . . and relieves any pressure on the mainstream classroom to improve.”