Bad Marks for Prison School

Almost 20,000 California prison inmates are enrolled in a new education program mired in staffing shortages, labor disputes and the logistics of giving convicts one-on-one instruction.

Launched in November to save money, Bridging Education -- resembling a series of correspondence courses -- has so far cost the state more than it has saved.

Teachers deliver the lessons at cell doors and in dormitories. But so many teaching jobs are unfilled that some instructors struggle to spend even half an hour a week with each of the 100 or more prisoners to whom they are assigned. And some inmates can go weeks without seeing a teacher.

California has the nation’s highest rate of repeat offenders, a problem that has contributed to prison overcrowding and ballooned the Department of Corrections budget to $6 billion. The Bridging Education program is a key piece of the Schwarzenegger administration’s efforts to save money by slashing the number of ex-convicts returning to prison.

Corrections officials are struggling to establish a program they say has enormous challenges and great promise. They are banking on Bridging Education to save more than $70 million a year and are hoping the program, despite start-up problems, will help restore the state’s reputation for rehabilitation.

“It is a beginning,” said Corrections Director Jeanne Woodford, appointed in mid-February. “Can you do self-study? Absolutely. Ideally, we would like to have a TV in every cell and be able to provide education over the TV. But we don’t have those dollars now.”

During half-hour weekly contacts, teachers check on students’ work and leave them new instructional materials. In their cells and dorms, students are expected to put in 6 1/2 hours a day on their own. They study topics such as anger management, violence control, HIV/AIDS, parenting and substance abuse, with the three Rs thrown in.

Teachers provide feedback and review papers, but there are no grades, and the coursework does not count toward a diploma. The state plans to issue certificates to those who complete the basic instructional program of about 60 days, which supplements traditional academic and vocational instruction.

For each day inmates spend in any of the educational programs, an extra day is knocked off their sentences, trimming incarceration costs that run $31,000 a year per inmate. Despite reports of inmate cheating, Bridging Education may cut in half prison time for people with shorter sentences.

The program comes as the operations of California’s scandal-scarred prisons undergo scrutiny by the courts, the Legislature and the governor’s office. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s prison review panel called in August for fully implementing the Bridging Education program to see whether it would reduce recidivism.

So far, the program has enrolled as many of the prison system’s 163,000 inmates as traditional classroom education and vocational training classes combined. But critics are unimpressed.

“It is a front, a fake, a way CDC can say, ‘We are offering education,’ ” said state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles), who plans hearings on prison education later this year. “Something is probably better than nothing. But is this the kind we should offer? No.”

Andy Hsia-Coron, the negotiator for the teachers union, is also critical: “You know how Jesus turned water into wine?” he said. “Well, we’re turning wine to water.”

Records, visits to several prisons and interviews with teachers and administrators showed evidence of several problems:

* Each teacher is supposed to have 54 students -- twice the number in traditional classes. But some instructors have several times that many. For example, instructors at Wasco State Prison have so many students -- sometimes 150 or more -- that they use book carts to carry lesson packets.

* Each student is to receive half an hour a week of individual attention. But staffing shortages make that impossible at a few of the largest prisons that house new inmates.

* Recruiting problems caused 35% of the teaching positions to go unfilled, and they may be cut from the department’s $160-million education budget.

* The program is designed so students can study independently. But many are barely literate or speak little English. And the instructional materials are not generally available in Spanish or other languages.

* Bridging is classified as an academic program. But it emphasizes practical “life skills” and introspective essays rather than providing a level of academic attainment. Most of the teachers are former vocational instructors without academic teaching experience.

Steve Steurer, executive director of the nonprofit Correctional Education Assn., said that half an hour a week is not enough instruction and that using former vocational instructors “does not make a lot of sense” because many prisoners have literacy problems and learning disabilities.

Officials said the program provides a bridge to other prison programs and jobs. They said start-up problems are understandable for a major initiative rushed into almost all 32 prisons since November. And they said a heavy emphasis on “life skills” makes former vocational trainers suitable as teachers and will help turn around inmates.

“Inmates have a criminal-thinking mentality,” said Jan Blaylock, head of the program since April. “We need to get them focused on what patterns of behavior got them here.”

In some exercises, inmates are asked to inventory their typical day, keep a journal, write an autobiography and work on their vocabulary. One exercise asks inmates to list “101 Little Important Reasons Not to Come Back to Prison.” As part of the last day of “Deep Thinking” exercises, participants are asked: “What mark have you left on the world to date: If you were to die tomorrow, would you be able to say you accomplished all you had hoped to?” Another topic: “What do the people who knew you before coming to prison remember most about you? Which memories would you be proud to own? Which do you wish had never occurred?”

On a sweltering morning in August, former public school teacher Jeff Ringelski lugged his book bag through Deuel Vocational Institution outside Tracy in the Central Valley.

“There’s no concern about discipline, unlike public school,” the Bridging Education instructor said. “Most [inmates] are cooperative. All are in cells.”

Speaking through a slot in a solid steel cell door, he introduced himself to a repeat drunk-driving offender. After spending five minutes explaining the program, he left behind about 20 pages of materials that asked the inmate, among other things, to draw up a life plan and study vocabulary words.

“You will increase your perception of the characteristics of successful people,” the cover sheet said. “You will begin your own self-assessment....”

Officials acknowledge that they do not know yet whether the program will slow the revolving door through which more than half of the state’s parolees return to prison within two years.

Although correspondence courses have been offered on a limited basis in the country’s prisons, John Berecochea, the department’s research chief from 1990 to 2002, said the Bridging Education model “does sound ludicrous -- a half-hour a week.”

His predecessor, Robert Dickover, said the program “does not sound promising.”

“One of the advantages of the traditional classroom is that you bring individuals who have been dislocated from schools ... into contact with a teacher with experience working with those kinds of individuals,” said Dickover, who was in the research department for 28 years.

*

The program’s difficulties are stark at two prisons in the flat, arid reaches of Kern County: Wasco and North Kern.

The two modern facilities north of Bakersfield have virtually no classroom space and not enough teachers.

Their union contends that the teachers should not be forced to work on potentially volatile cellblocks. And in July, 18 teachers from North Kern aired their concerns with Ernie Garcia, labor relations representative for Service Employees International Union, Local 1000, California State Employees Assn.

Garcia asked about the inmate-teacher ratio. “How many of you have more than a 54 to 1?” All but a few hands went up.

During a discussion, one teacher said, “I spend 75% to 80% [of my time] doing paperwork.” And another said, “Some students don’t speak English. There’s nothing to give them.”

The next day at nearby Wasco, teachers fanned out through the housing units. In a cellblock for prisoners considered vulnerable to attack, a former gang member complained about the teacher shortage. “We’ve got nobody to help us and hardly get out of our cells,” he said. “This paperwork is not going to help stop me from doing drugs.”

Moments later, instructor Bill Peck praised another inmate’s math homework but chastised him for using an expletive in an essay. “We don’t need that kind of language,” Peck said. “We’ll be back in seven to 10 days. Don’t get frustrated.”

Nearby, Shawn Anderson, 38, a three-time parole violator from Bakersfield, was practicing his vowels. “I can’t read,” he said.

An illness knocked him out of school in the eighth grade, but he now wants to attend an engineering college, as his father did. “My dad is dying,” he said. “I want to get something done before he does.”

In a dormitory, two women teachers stood behind a metal food cart, facing inmates turning in weekly assignments as others showered nearby, watched television or played cards.

Larry Holloman, 51, who said he is there for possession of a firearm and marijuana, gave his meticulously printed homework a final read. “Lots of stuff from high school I forgot,” he said.

In another unit, Domonick Pryor, 21, a former nursing student, said the lessons refreshed his education. “Lots [of prisoners] came up to me for help with their packet, and they would pay me a dollar or five soups,” which cost 20 cents a packet, he added.

Other inmates confessed that they enlisted help from cellmates so they could keep getting education credits. But officials said inmates learn by simply writing down answers provided to them.

*

Bridging Education arose out of last year’s fiscal crisis, when the department had to trim nearly $35 million in educational spending.

Officials concluded, among other things, that 300 instructors were teaching outdated trades, including typewriter repair. And the layoffs began.

But during budget wrangling, the department proposed educating the inmates temporarily housed at reception centers to allow eligible prisoners to immediately start accruing credits for school participation. And the former vocational teachers were hired.

Last October, the department estimated the program would save $51.5 million the first year by reducing the inmate population and $71 million the second year. But officials say that with start-up expenses and delays, the program instead ended up costing an additional $14.5 million the first year.

Teachers, meanwhile, are doing their best to teach without classrooms and with little time for their students. Meghan Elliott, a former first-grade teacher, has adjusted to the intimidating cellblocks of Deuel.

“I like it,” she said. “I try to have a good rapport and joke. Lots of the gentlemen complete their packets before they are supposed to, and they really open up.”