Sacramento, CA -- At the recent gubernatorial debate between Dan Lungren and Gray Davis, the most
interesting comment of the night was not uttered on stage but during the press availability after the
debate’s conclusion. When pressed about school-choice vouchers/opportunity scholarships, Lt. Governor Davis,
who advocates state takeover of low-performing public schools, told reporters that if a state takeover failed
to improve student achievement, "I’m open to anything. . . including vouchers." An amazing concession from
someone who has been implacably opposed to school choice.

Well, there is an existing example of a state takeover of a local public school system, and the results should
be of interest to Mr. Davis. For five years, the state of California has run the schools in the city of
Compton outside of Los Angeles. When the state took control of Compton’s schools, there seemed ample
reasons for doing so: the district’s massive fiscal mismanagement had created a huge budget deficit, plus
Compton students had performed very poorly on various achievement indicators for years. Yet, after five years
of state-run administration, the situation in Compton is worse than ever.

As the Los Angeles Times has noted, not only do Compton students continue to have among the worst SAT
scores in the state, those scores have fallen consistently over the last five years. In addition, the
dropout rate has doubled in recent years and the district is still in debt. The latest blow to Compton’s
state-run administration came several weeks ago when the results of the first statewide standardized STAR
tests were released.

These tests were given to students in grades 2-11 and covered various core subjects. In math, only 30 percent
of Compton second graders scored at or above the 50th national percentile ranking. And it was all downhill
from there: only 21 percent of Compton third graders scored at or above the 50th percentile, while only 16
percent of sixth graders and only 9 percent of eleventh graders scored at or above the 50th percentile.

As bad as Compton students’ math scores were, however, their reading scores were worse. Only 17 percent of
second graders scored at or above the 50th percentile, while only 11 percent of sixth graders and 6 percent of
eleventh graders scored at or above the 50th percentile.

In terms of student achievement, therefore, it is hard to see where the state takeover has made any real
difference. As Compton’s mayor, Omar Bradley, notes, "All the reasons and all the issues that prompted the
state to take over the district still exist."

As the Compton experience demonstrates, substituting the level of government in charge of a school system
doesn’t guarantee improved student performance. This should come as no surprise since the same problems of
bureaucracy, lack of incentives, and unresponsiveness to the consumer are present in any monopolistic
government system (state or local). These problems are only rectified through the introduction of competition
and that means, in this case, school-choice vouchers/ opportunity scholarships.

--Lance T. Izumi

You are here: > Publications > Capital Ideas