MAYOR: TAKE CARE OF SCHOOLS, GANGS FOR STRONG FUTURE.Byline: RICK ORLOV Staff Writer Tying together his plans for education reform and a crackdown crack·down n. An act or example of forceful regulation, repression, or restraint: a crackdown on crime. Noun 1. on gang crime, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa Antonio Ramon Villaraigosa (born Antonio (Tony) Ramon Villar, Jr. on January 23, 1953) is the mayor of Los Angeles, California. He is the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since Cristobal Aguilar in 1872. told business leaders Thursday that they need to become more involved in shaping the future of Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. . ``I am not giving up on education,'' Villaraigosa told more than 300 members of the Central City Association during its first meeting of the year. ``Some critics have said that I have shifted away from it to focus on gangs. And, yes, I did say gangs is our No. 1 public safety priority -- but it is all linked to education. ``You see any gang member and you see young people who were truants or dropouts. It is not racial differences that spur the violence. It is hopelessness.'' Villaraigosa, who released a wide-ranging proposal on school reform late Wednesday, received a warm welcome from the group and said he is still pursuing a court case to gain more authority over 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 said he will not be deterred if he loses in court. ``I think we can say that no mayor will be able to avoid becoming involved in education in the future,'' Villaraigosa said. ``If I am not successful legislatively, I will pursue Plan B. Or Plan C or D, all the way down the alphabet alphabet [Gr. alpha-beta, like Eng. ABC], system of writing, theoretically having a one-for-one relation between character (or letter) and phoneme (see phonetics). Few alphabets have achieved the ideal exactness. , until we have a world-class school system.'' Villaraigosa said it is up to business leaders to help pressure LAUSD LAUSD Los Angeles Unified School District (Los Angeles, CA) administrators to improve student test scores and reduce the 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 if they want a city that has qualified workers and a market for their products. The mayor also said he is prepared to continue to help the business community and Los Angeles grow. ``We need smart growth,'' Villaraigosa said. ``We need to put more housing where people work. We have done it in Century City; we can do it downtown.'' rick.orlov(at)dailynews.com (213) 978-0390 |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion