More Schools Landing Corporate Commitments

When United Airlines decided to adopt a local third-grade class, it assumed it would be easy to give away $1.5 million and provide a decade-long cultural enrichment program led by employee mentors and studded with dazzling field trips.

Then reality intervened. School officials did a poor job of advertising the proposal to principals. Medical tests and law enforcement checks of prospective mentors took months to complete. Half the students in the class that was finally selected cannot read at grade level, meaning that there was a greater need for remedial programs than field trips.

The airline worked through the setbacks and delays and today will unveil a program at 32nd Street/USC Magnet School that ranks as one of the city’s most intensive corporate efforts in a public school. Students will be teamed with mentors who have committed to making two four-hour visits a month for at least one year--ideally for nine years. The class will get $10,000 each year. Each student is guaranteed college tuition.

Education officials see the program as an exciting spur to education and the latest example of a new trend in Los Angeles and across the nation: firms large and small wanting to bring highly individualized enrichment programs to public schools.

Guilbert Hentschke, dean of the USC School of Education, called United’s effort part of “an emerging corporate strategy of aiming the philanthropic dollar directly at the intended beneficiary--in this case kids--rather than mediate it through a school board.”

Corporate donations to public schools, which slumped in the early 1990s, are rising again. About 289 firms, mostly from the Fortune 1000, committed $86.4 million to elementary and secondary schools in 1996--about 9% more than the year before, according to the Conference Board, a global organization dedicated to enhancing the contribution of business to society.

Since 1991, the Conference Board has been honoring companies for their leadership and commitment of resources and talent to improve pre-college education.

“In recent years, corporate programs have become more comprehensive. They don’t just write checks anymore,” said Audris Tillman. “These days, they offer mentors and send scientists out to teach math and science. They are adopting classrooms, even entire schools, in collaboration with local officials. Many have created full-time positions for people involved with their education programs.”

One of this year’s winners was Chase Manhattan Bank, which runs a debate program that aims to improve writing, oral and presentation skills, enhance critical thinking and boost confidence. Top finalists in the debate program receive cash awards totaling $4,000 and an opportunity to work in the bank’s summer intern program.

“When we announced the program in 1983, there were only seven schools in New York City that had debate programs,” said Martha Graham, vice president and manager of public education initiatives for Chase Manhattan. “This year, 88 high schools participated.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s Partnerships and Adopt-a-School program also has seen a growing number of firms wanting to establish education efforts.

Many of these firms want to adopt schools that have no other corporate benefactors, district officials said. However, there are not many such schools left, save for a few in South-Central Los Angeles.

“But we welcome all offers,” said Eiko Moriyama, who heads the Adopt-a-School program. “There are two things this district can’t buy with its $6.5-billion budget--role models and mentors.”

The Adopt-a-School program started 20 years ago when Arco began sending volunteer employees to 10th Street Elementary to help students improve their math and English.

Five years ago, the district’s program handled about $12 million in corporate programs. This year, it is working with a total of 1,200 such efforts worth about $18 million.

Bank of America is providing volunteer mentor-teachers and on-the-job training to juniors and seniors at Belmont High School. U.S. Borax sponsors Internet access, graduation luncheons, scholarship ceremonies and employee mentor programs at three local schools. Vons supermarkets will soon be training teachers to become computer literate.

This summer, Mayor Richard Riordan plans to host a special luncheon for 200 business leaders who have expressed an interest in adopting a Los Angeles school.

The Believers program represents United’s first expansion of an effort started in 1994 by Chief Executive Officer Jerry Greenwald and his wife, Glenda, with 50 fifth-graders in Chicago’s impoverished North Lawndale community.

“Any corporation can write a check to a school,” Greenwald said in a prepared statement. “Our program is unique in that United is making a commitment in human resources and providing the mentoring that can make a meaningful change in the lives of students, their families and communities.”

In Los Angeles, home to about 8,000 United employees, the corporation was searching for a centrally located, ethnically and academically diverse class in a school led by high-energy teachers and administrators.

It wanted to focus on a third-grade class because research indicates that is a crucial period in a child’s academic life. Students who cannot read at grade level by that point often fall hopelessly behind in school.

After an extensive search, United selected 32nd Street. The company liked the fact that the school ran from kindergarten through 12th grade, one of three such campuses in the city. 32nd Street is also a member of USC’s Family of Five Schools program, a national model of private and public school partnerships that offers a range of outreach programs--and tutors.

To be sure, there were signs of trouble. The school, built seven decades ago in the shadow of USC, had seen four principals in three years. And the campus’ kindergarten through eighth-grade magnet, which stresses visual and performing arts, ranked in the 33rd percentile on state standardized tests.

On the other hand, 32nd Street’s high school magnet, which focuses on math, science and technology, has achieved respectable results in the tests.

The new principal, Gail Greer, who learned about the program when United bypassed district officials and called her office, impressed company officials with her energy, enthusiasm, honesty and dedication.

“I’m always hungry for opportunities,” Greer said. “When they called, I jumped right on it.”

Generally, United is making things livelier for its Believers. In January, a few students rode the airline’s float in the Rose Parade. Two weeks ago, all 20 were admitted as VIPs to the Van Gogh exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Jackie Hudson, senior staff analyst for design production at United, recalled bonding with her new friend, 9-year-old Vivian Vasquez, while viewing Van Gogh’s works.

“Do you aspire to be a great artist like Van Gogh?” the executive asked the third-grader, who nodded vigorously. “Well, if you do a drawing for me, I’ll frame it and it will be your first serious work of art.”

A week ago, the little girl with big brown eyes produced a remarkably detailed reproduction--in crayon--of Van Gogh’s portrait of his own bedroom, which Hudson is having matted and framed as a gift for the Vasquez family.

Trimming a papier-mache Mother’s Day card she made in class, Vivian said, “Believers are people who believe they will do well in school. I’m a believer, and I will do my best.”

Lauren Mitchell, 8, has come to a similar conclusion. “When I grow up and go to college, I’ll probably need some money,” she said. “United will give it to me.”

Their teacher, Deanna Reed, just hopes for the best.

“United wanted the ultimate plan, but they discovered it’s going to be a work in progress,” she said. “I have a feeling that at least seven of these kids will go to a university; five or six more will go to junior college. So I’m anxious to see how this Believers story ends.”

“It’s going to work out,” said mentor Debra Valentine-Gray, United’s community services coordinator. “But we’ve got our work cut out.”