Myth of the Book Crisis

The desk of Sheawana Armstrong, textbook clerk, sits in a long, windowless room off the school library at Compton High.

On the right side of the room, two dozen shelves hold more than 1,000 textbooks as backups in case of theft or loss. On the left, the walls are lined with hundreds of extra copies of fine literature--Shakespeare’s plays, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” the Japanese internment history “Farewell to Manzanar.”

Armstrong’s full office shouldn’t be news, except that politicians all over the county have taken to the airwaves to say that schools have too few books.

Inside the Compton schools, at least, it is difficult to see what such critics are talking about.

All the books get in the way.

“Too many books,” Armstrong said. “What I really need is more space.”

Compton is the latest flash point in what is often portrayed as a textbook crisis in poor schools.

Every candidate for mayor in town says there is a book shortage. Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante recently expressed concern. Mayor Omar Bradley is pushing a city plan to give the school district $500,000 for books. Comedian Steve Harvey has made Compton’s supposed lack of textbooks a cause celebre on his morning radio show.

California is in the third year of a four-year effort to add $250 million in funds for textbooks, an appropriation that will probably become permanent this year. In that context, the claim of a textbook shortage sometimes represents a distraction from truly pressing needs that the state has not so decisively addressed.

California’s schools, particularly in places such as Compton, are desperate for classroom space, modern facilities and credentialed teachers. By comparison, texts are cheap and easy to come by--thereby making them an attractive topic for ambitious politicians.

Not only does the state set aside hundreds of millions of dollars for texts, but federal funds are easily tapped to pay for books.

So the “official” textbook shortage persists even in well-equipped schools as urban legend--a fact believed because everyone seems to believe it.

“If I was in Compton,” said former state Education Secretary Maureen DiMarco, now vice president at the textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin, “I would be more concerned about the buildings falling down on top of me.”

“ ‘Lack of textbooks’ is one of those things that people like to say, true or not,” said Edna Burems, the assistant principal in charge of textbooks at Los Angeles’ Fairfax High. But in reality, “The money is there, so all a school really needs is someone who knows how to manage the books.”

At Compton High, that someone is Armstrong. The textbook clerk started working for the district at the age of 19 as a part-time aide. Now 25, she oversees 13,311 textbooks on behalf of the school’s 2,400 students.

About this time each school year, Armstrong sends written survey forms to teachers, checking on missing books and soliciting suggestions for new editions. She recently hand-delivered a $400,000 order to district headquarters for next fall’s texts. “Getting the new books is the easy part,” she said.

The hard work is keeping those books from being lost and stolen--losses that cut into the school’s budget for buying new books. Armstrong spends each summer in her office--there is no air-conditioner, but she wouldn’t mind if a concerned politician sprang for one--affixing bar codes to new books and making calls to students who did not return books in the spring. Last summer, she called and sent letters to more than 350 families.

She also mails out “parent responsibility forms,” one-page letters parents are supposed to sign, pledging to reimburse the district if their child doesn’t return a book.

These forms are crucial to understanding the claims of students who don’t have textbooks. Ninety percent of students return the form and are issued textbooks they can take home. But 10% of Compton High enrollees don’t return the form and thus don’t receive their books. Parents often refuse to sign, citing reasons ranging from a lack of interest in their children’s education to an unwillingness to accept the financial responsibility. Sometimes teenagers keep the form from their parents. Whatever the case, the bookless 10% have only themselves to blame.

“I don’t want to carry that around,” explains Chayna Allen, 15, a freshman, referring to the form she refuses to take home. “I don’t have the time.”

When textbooks are absent, the breakdowns appear to be in distribution, not funding. Over at Centennial High in December, students complained that new textbooks were sitting in the library, rather than being handed out. Armstrong has avoided similar problems at Compton High through constant vigilance.

Because the high school serves poor families that move often, Armstrong must constantly retrieve books from students who stop showing up. Changes in class enrollments also can leave her short. For the first two months of this year, some students in Advanced Placement economics were without textbooks. The number of people taking the college-level class grew so rapidly that she hadn’t ordered enough.

Members of that class were understanding about the delay. But many students ask why politicians are talking about textbooks when Compton High is missing other basics.

Angel Moreno, a junior, says sports teams and extracurricular organizations are short of equipment. Robert Lightfoot, another junior, says the school’s bathrooms and heating system need better maintenance. A columnist in the student newspaper, the Chimes, has urged the purchase of metal detectors.

Jennifer Flores, editor of the Chimes, said, “We haven’t really written anything about textbooks, because it isn’t a real issue for us.” All the talk has convinced her, though, that there must be a shortage of books.

“I heard they don’t have enough books in the district. Don’t they?”

Armstrong shakes her head at such comments. “It doesn’t matter what I say,” she said, sitting in her office full of books. “People want to believe these shelves are empty.”