The infamous Los Angeles "Unified" School District is a national disgrace that keeps getting worse. LAUSD is a virtual prison for failure.
Today’s LA Times reveals that high school students in LA, less than half graduate. In Oakland failure rate is 54.4 who do not graduate.
Both school districts have been under union democrat control for over 50 years. Despite endless spending experiments the unions keep electing incompetents to stifle reforms that would benefit children.
To suggest this is a scandal is to minimize the on going national tragedy. In the US over 1.2. students drop out of high school.
We will hear the usual cries from the Left, that there isn’t enough money. But private schools usually get better results with a fraction of the money. Or there are subtle inferences that the kids aren’t really smart enough from poor neighborhoods. However, inner city Catholic schools have discredited this thesis. In a word, it’s the unions and their conflict-of-interest control over the school district. Education is not the goal, control over taxpayers monies is paramount.
Reformers and conservatives have tried Vouchers but have been defeated twice in California with the teacher unions spending scores of millions against. The only movement that has gained traction is the Charter School movement. A semi autonomous school within the public school district. Even then, the resistance from corrupt teacher union officials and their democrat allies is endless.
So what is to be done about this virtual child abuse ?
The Daily Breeze implores that the LAUSD to simply throw in the towel. Break up and decentralize. Even a few democrats, who might be worried that thousands of kids are not functional citizens, believe that the Break Up needs to happen.
The question is how much pain and abuse will democrats tolerate until they resist teacher union power to permit decentralization.
