Compton Schools Get D in Progress

The very progress report that Assemblyman Carl Washington hoped would speed Compton Unified School District’s return to local control instead projects a long road ahead.

The document, released Monday by a team of outside reviewers, indicates that there has been improvement but much remains to be done before the district is ready to take over from state administrators who have been in charge since 1993.

“It’s important for Compton to be able to function after everyone leaves,” said Christine Frasier, one of the study coordinators.

Issued as a report card, the $500,000 study found the Compton district at or near completion on about a fifth of 372 essential changes in five categories ranging from pupil achievement to financial management.

Initial progress was cited in financial stability and student performance. But the district fell short in tasks as simple as installing enough school fire extinguishers and as complex as aligning classroom curriculum with testing.

In several areas studied, including hiring and special education, auditors found the district was out of compliance with state and federal regulations.

The study attributes the gradual pace to the complexity of problems in the 29,000-student district along with school board infighting and mounting pressure from a disheartened and sometimes disruptive community.

But Washington (D-Paramount), who has pushed for the district to be free of the state by next year, said the blame is misdirected.

“I think the direction of the report is focused on the school board members who have no authority and on the chaos that anybody would cause if they had their power taken away,” Washington said. “That chaos is state-inspired.”

Four Compton board members attended an afternoon hearing on the study before the Assembly Select Committee on Compton Unified School District, which Washington heads. A majority spoke in support of the study’s findings, including Basil Kimbrew, who shortly after his election in 1995 challenged the state’s takeover in court.

“I know everyone wants the power back,” Kimbrew said, “but we have to make sure we’re ready to handle the responsibility for educating 29,000 kids.”

Facing a financial shortfall of almost $20 million in 1993, the district sought a state loan that came with strings attached: the state takeover.

Turmoil continued as five state-appointed administrators tried their hands at improving both the fiscal and academic aspects of the troubled system, where nepotism and corruption ran rampant.

Current state administrator Randy Ward told the committee he had pledged to stay for the duration. “I know of your impatience on this, Mr. Washington, and I am just as impatient,” Ward said. The new study and its recommendations will ultimately make the transition possible, Ward said, “if we can all have just a little more patience.”

The timing of the transfer of power remains in dispute, however. Washington has said 2000, Ward has said three to five years from now, and the new audit is more circumspect, suggesting that it should occur when the district manages to implement the 372 standards at a level of 7.5 on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is no implementation and 10 is complete.

Restoring local control was a major theme of Washington’s campaign for the Legislature in 1996. Once the minister took a closer look, he became persuaded the transition should be gradual.

Washington said he “wanted the truth,” but he didn’t expect the study to identify such a wide chasm between the district’s condition and its goals.

“Is any other school district undergoing this scrutiny?” he lamented Monday. “No, they’re not!”

Getting the study’s worst rating was personnel, where auditors found not only poor human resources training, but also a lack of procedures for dealing with fingerprinting, tuberculosis testing and sexual harassment complaints. Second worst was student achievement. Test scores have improved, but remain abysmally low in most areas. Yet auditors found the district had no process in place to use scores and other student assessments as a road map for teaching. Also cited as a festering problem were racial tensions between the majority black district staff and school board and the new majority of Latino students and parents.