Can v. Man

A fast-growing, already seam-split junior college on the outskirts of Los Angeles is likely to be the battleground for California's hottest educational fight during the next few months. The issue at Compton College: President Paul Martin's use--or misuse, depending on which violently opposed viewpoint is taken--of educational television. Within the college, teachers mutter moodily of "1984"--or support Martin enthusiastically. Outside, bitter opposition is building; a few days ago the 90,000-member California Teachers Association condemned Compton's plan, asked the University of California to consider refusing to recognize credits earned in TV-taught courses, asked the powerful Western College Association, the regional accrediting group, to have a look at the college's TV program.

The Martin concept: replace live professors wherever possible with filmed lectures, projectors and closed-circuit television rigs. The project is going strong: 919 students at Compton (enrollment: 4,800) taking a first-year psychology course need never face a flesh-and-blood lecturer, and 1,099 students in freshman algebra and English courses are film-fed most of the time. Their education is largely seen to by a woman worker in a central control room, who feeds the proper reels into the correct machines, and a faculty-member monitor, who patrols four TV theaters at a time, sees that sets work right and that classes do not become disorderly. Students with questions to ask may make appointments with instructors.

Breakthrough. Martin talks enthusiastically of his "breakthrough in education," scorns the experimental nature of other TV projects, says emphatically: "We are not making comparisons with live classes. We're just not in the business of conducting research. We are putting three more full courses on film, and by the end of the year we will have another three under way. This is not an experiment; we are switching over."

Reason for the switchover: without TV, the college would have to hire more new teachers, instead hopes to save $60,000 in salaries by June. And with TV, Compton expects to handle a 100% enrollment increase in the next decade with a boost of only about 30% in its 90-member staff. Said one official: "We figure that saving the costs of 60 bodies is well worth it." Compton plans to build a TV wing, with six windowless, air-conditioned classrooms.

Martin rammed through the project without bringing his teachers into the planning and faculty feathers are ruffled. Some objections: students are supposed to bring questions to teachers, "but several of us have the impression that the students are just letting their questions go rather than take the trouble"; day-to-day happenings cannot be related to course material; teachers filming new courses have to be careful not to drag in anything topical. Said one teacher plaintively: "They say it takes the pick-and-shovel repetition out of teaching. But some teachers like to teach . . ."

Revolution. Students by and large are cool to Martin's revolution; during a half-hour of one television lecture recently, one or two students walked out and four others fell asleep. Most of the rest talked away the time. Said one boy afterward: "I can't concentrate on it."

Only a little taken aback by the furor, Martin said last week that he will not change his plans. He admits that teacherless students experience "a feeling of loss," nevertheless predicts a clear future for canned classes: "As the use of film spreads, as students become more accustomed to it, they'll listen to a lecture like they read a book. After having filmed classes in high school and--why not--in elementary school, too, they'll be adjusted by the time they reach college, and won't feel the loss."

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