Posted on 04/18/2006 10:51:02 AM PDT by BenLurkin
GRANADA HILLS - State Sen. George Runner and Assemblyman Keith Richman announced legislation Monday that would break up the 727,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District into at least 15 smaller districts. The two lawmakers promised greater accountability would come from community-based school systems, calling the nation's second-largest district a "bureaucratic behemoth" that was failing students.
Under identical bills proposed in the state Assembly and Senate, any California school district with more than half a million students - L.A. Unified is the only one large enough to qualify - must split into districts no larger than 50,000 students by 2010. A nine-member commission, including the mayor of Los Angeles and local educators, would decide how best to break up L.A. Unified. The new districts could not collectively spend more on administration than the district being divided, according to the legislation.
"When we have dropout rates of 50% for minority students and 30% for all students, that's a failing school district," said Richman, R-Northridge.
The proposal by Richman and Runner, R-Lancaster, goes in the opposite direction of L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who wants the city to take over the long-troubled school system. The district's teachers union, United Teachers of Los Angeles, also has proposed reforms.
(Excerpt) Read more at avpress.com ...
Intresting idea. I doubt the LA School systems will let you carve them up since behemoths like being big. But have at it guys!
and the little secret is that at least a THIRD OF THE STUDENTS DON'T EVEN SPEAK ENGLISH in the L.A.U.S.D.
They must all be looking for jobs in Mexico.
It won't hurt matters. More localized control will improve the level of individual attention to students and teachers. How much it would help is unclear.
Maybe you're right--but just think how many more "Administrators" could be hired.
Good point!
Dropout rate of 50% - a lovely number that. I wonder how they come to such a number?
Do they count Jose who left school at grade 7 to return with his illegal alien parents to Mexico? Is that a drop out? How about those who are presently in jail? Are they drop outs?
I always suspect most numbers that are bandied about, especially by politicians. They hardly ever choose to put out meaningful numbers, and nine times out of ten, the number they do put out there is absolutely wrong as they represent it.
Yes, LAUSD is huge. No, cutting it up will not make the worst performing schools any better. There is a specific goal here - that of getting the valley students out of the same umbrella. So that they can get pretty pennants to hang from their school signs about how well they're doing, without being saddled with the results from the rest of the district.
As for the laughable concept that nine smaller districts will somehow spend collectively less than the original - Oh, I can just see it now. "No, you ask that district to cut their funding; all we have left is essential monies. We've cut to the bone here, to the bone... Need some creamer for your gourmet coffee?"
They probably pull it from a recent Harvard study which claims "In the Los Angeles Unified School District—the state’s largest district—only 48 percent of African-American and Latino students who start 9th grade graduate four years later."
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