EDITORIAL LAUSD ARROGANCE DISTRICT RESISTS REFORM AT ITS OWN PERIL.``LIKE pulling teeth'' -- that's how state Sen. Richard Alarcon describes working with 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. , and he should know. The Van Nuys Democrat, who's authored legislation to reduce the number of high school dropouts, sought detailed data from the district for his research. But the officials -- always desperate to hide the extent of their failures -- declined, citing students' privacy concerns. While that might sound like a legitimate objection, there's just one problem: Alarcon wasn't asking for the students' names. Still, district officials said, they can't give that information out. It's so detailed that someone could theoretically pore through the data and identify specific students within the 700,000-student behemoth behemoth (bē`hĭmŏth, bĭhē`–) [Heb.,=plural of beast], large, fanciful primeval monster, like Leviathan, evoking the hippopotamus mentioned in the Book of Job. . Sure. Meanwhile, Alarcon isn't the only legislator who's found extracting information from the LAUSD LAUSD Los Angeles Unified School District (Los Angeles, CA) to be about as much fun as a trip to the dentist "A Trip to the Dentist" is episode 21 of season 1 of the television show Veronica Mars. Plot Veronica finally investigates what happened to her the night of Shelly Pomroy's party where she was drugged and date-raped and what she finds out is shocking. . When state Sen. Gloria Romero Gloria J. Romero is currently the Democratic majority leader of the California State Senate and the first woman to ever hold this leadership position. Romero grew up in Barstow, and earned her associate's degree from Barstow Community College. She went on to a B.A. , D-Los Angeles, sought data about how much taxpayer money the LAUSD is spending to fight Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's reform efforts, the district balked balk v. balked, balk·ing, balks v.intr. 1. To stop short and refuse to go on: The horse balked at the jump. 2. again. So Romero got mad, and did what any other sensible person in her position would do: She notified the authorities. In a letter sent to the district attorney and the state attorney general, Romero asked that prosecutors look into whether the district is misspending public funds See Fund, 3. See also: Public on politics by shipping busloads of handpicked parents to Sacramento to lobby against LAUSD reform. Romero also asked whether the district violated state open-meetings law when its superintendent-search committee met in private and without advance public notice. Finally, she wants to know why the district thinks it can get away with ignoring public-records requests. Whether the LAUSD has broken any laws will be up to prosecutors to determine. But clearly, it's been contemptuous of the public trust. There's an important debate going on about the future of education in L.A. Yet rather than engage that debate, the district is fighting every step of the way. The strategy isn't working. The LAUSD's arrogant attitude and conduct are only fueling public discontent. |
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