Poll: Calif. schools in 'shocking disrepair'

SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- California's public schools are in "shocking disrepair," with almost one-third of teachers saying they lack enough books for children to do homework and almost as many reporting classrooms crawling with cockroaches, rats and mice.

"Without doubt, the California education system is failing to provide a significant minority of students with the basic environment in which they can learn," pollster Lou Harris said Tuesday in releasing a statewide survey of school conditions.

California education officials swiftly condemned the survey, saying it was unscientific and did not show the real progress they have made in improving facilities and teacher training for their 6 million public school students.

"It is surprising to me at this point that we are again under such severe criticism," state Secretary of Education Kerry Mazzoni told a news conference.

"Certainly we know that there are some schools in this state that need to improve, that have serious issues ... we are addressing that."

The Harris Poll, commissioned by civil-rights groups who filed a class action lawsuit seeking more spending on education, polled a random sample of 1,071 California teachers.

Thirty-two percent of teachers -- responsible for the education of some 1.9 million children -- said they did not have enough books for children to do their homework.

Almost as many, 27 percent, said they taught in facilities infested with cockroaches, rats or mice.

"Conditions are much worse and more unequal than we had expected," said John Affeldt of Public Advocates Inc., one of the survey sponsors. "Californians should be embarrassed by the state of their public schools."

Fewer bathrooms for poor students

The class action suit, filed in May, 2000, charged the nation's most populous state with failing to provide public school students with the "bare essentials" for an education.

It also claimed that California violates state and federal requirements to provide equal access to public education because students in areas dominated by minority groups were more likely to find their classrooms in ruins.

The Harris poll revealed stark disparities between teachers who serve middle- and upper-class neighborhoods and teachers who serve mostly low-income students.

The survey results showed that disadvantaged students were 12 times more likely to be in a school with large numbers of untrained teachers and nearly twice as likely to lack adequate textbooks. Poor students were almost twice as likely to attend a school without functioning bathrooms.

Gov. Gray Davis, who faces reelection in November, has vowed to keep spending money on educational improvements despite a projected budget deficit of some $20 billion.

Former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, now superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, angrily dismissed the poll as an "advocacy document."

"Do we have challenges in terms of things we need to improve? You bet. But are we a rat-infested, no-textbook district? Absolute misrepresentation," Romer told a news conference.

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