EDITORIAL COSTLY EXCUSES LAUSD FIGHTS REFORM WITH PUBLIC'S MONEY.WE'RE not sure what's worse: that the Los Angeles Unified School District The Los Angeles Unified School District (the "LAUSD") is the largest (in terms of number of students) public school system in California and the second-largest in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population. is fighting a full-fledged battle to thwart reform, or that it's spending taxpayer money to do it. Either way, the performance is pretty sickening. With the district's bloated bureaucracy, its culture of failure and a dropout (1) On magnetic media, a bit that has lost its strength due to a surface defect or recording malfunction. If the bit is in an audio or video file, it might be detected by the error correction circuitry and either corrected or not, but if not, it is often not noticed by the human rate of around 50 percent, you would think district officials would finally give up their game of deny, deflect and defend and just admit they've got a problem and seek help. Think again. Instead, LAUSD LAUSD Los Angeles Unified School District (Los Angeles, CA) officials are fighting Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's reform plan, just as they have every other effort from breakup to charter schools. And instead of offering their own reforms, they spin modest test- score improvements and take credit for the public's willingness to pay Willingness to pay (WTP) generally refers to the value of a good to a person as what they are willing to pay, sacrifice or exchange for it. See also
The reason taxpayers have shelled out $19 billion for new and improved schools is they want massive reform and a great leap forward Great Leap Forward, 1957–60, Chinese economic plan aimed at revitalizing all sectors of the economy. Initiated by Mao Zedong, the plan emphasized decentralized, labor-intensive industrialization, typified by the construction of thousands of backyard steel in educational achievement. It's significant that the district, which was able to win voter support for bond issues, is having trouble funding the anti-reform campaign. No problem. They just took money for textbooks and classrooms to the tune of $236,000. And they hired an outside lawyer to help at $20,000 a month. ``Until we feel that the successes that we have made are not being jeopardized by the language in the proposed bill,'' said school board President Marlene Canter, ``we will continue to incur expenses on behalf of that for the kids.'' Gag. Wasting their education funds is hardly a noble act ``for the kids.'' For the board members' privileged position, maybe; for the status quo [Latin, The existing state of things at any given date.] Status quo ante bellum means the state of things before the war. The status quo to be preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. , most certainly. But definitely not for ``the kids.'' If district officials cared so much about ``the kids,'' they wouldn't have eviscerated local mini-districts, emasculated e·mas·cu·late tr.v. e·mas·cu·lat·ed, e·mas·cu·lat·ing, e·mas·cu·lates 1. To castrate. 2. To deprive of strength or vigor; weaken. adj. Deprived of virility, strength, or vigor. the Inspector General's Office and expanded the bureaucracy. Instead of wasting taxpayer money, the district might take this free advice: Stop fighting progress and reform, and fix what's broken in the mayor's plan. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion