In Carson, Teachers Say No Thanks to Grant

In the cash-strapped world of urban public high schools, million-dollar gifts -- even ones with strings attached -- walk in the door about as often as star athletes with perfect SAT scores.

Even less common is for one to be turned down.

But that is what happened at Carson High School this year, when teachers voted down a highly touted reform program that came with a $1.5-million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Depending on who's asked, it was either a case study of union power run amok or of high-handed, top-down management.

Almost certainly, it was an example of how hard it can be to bring about reform in a school system as large, complex and politically stratified as the Los Angeles Unified School District.

At first blush, it seemed like a perfect fit. Last year, the Gates Foundation, which has become a major philanthropic force in public education, was looking for schools in the Los Angeles district to adopt the Talent Development model of school reform. Talent Development, created by researchers from Johns Hopkins University, had shown strong promise at reducing dropout rates and raising student achievement at schools in Philadelphia, Boston, Louisiana and elsewhere.

The foundation had invested mostly in other school districts, and Los Angeles Unified officials were growing eager for its help. Gates was willing to back the program with $3 million at two schools.

Talent Development officials met with district administrators last year, looked at the landscape, and thought Carson and Jordan High were especially ripe for their program. Jordan, one of the lowest-performing schools in the district, was more in line with the kind of school that Talent Development was looking for. "Gates ... wants a focus on those schools that are in the most trouble," said Tara Madden, the Western regional coordinator for Talent Development.

Carson students weren't doing a lot better, at least judging by standardized test scores. In the Academic Performance Index, which ranks schools from one to 10 (with 10 being the best), Jordan was a one and Carson was a two. Jordan students fared a little better at math. But a higher percentage of Carson's students were graduating, and a significant percentage of those were going to college.

Still, Doug Weybright, then principal of Carson High, believed the school should be doing much, much better, and had been looking for outside help to boost his struggling students.