Los Angeles Unified School District
Los Angeles Unified School District is a public school district in Los Angeles County, California, United States of America. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the second largest public school district in the United States, with only the New York City Department of Education having a larger student population. During the 2022–23 school year, LAUSD served 565,479 students, including 11,795 early childhood education students and 27,740 adult students. During the same school year, it had 24,710 teachers and 49,231 other employees. It is the second largest employer in Los Angeles County after the county government. The school district's budget for the 2021–22 school year was $10.7 billion, increasing to $12.6 billion for the 2022–23 school year.
The school district's jurisdiction area consists of almost all of the city of Los Angeles and all or portions of several adjoining cities and unincorporated areas in southwestern Los Angeles County. LAUSD has its own police force, the Los Angeles School Police Department, which was established in 1948 to provide police services for LAUSD schools. The LAUSD enrolls a third of the preschoolers in Los Angeles County, and operates almost as many buses as the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The LAUSD school construction program rivals the Big Dig in terms of expenditures, and LAUSD cafeterias serve about 500,000 meals a day, rivaling the output of local McDonald's restaurants.
LAUSD has been criticized in the past for extremely crowded schools with large class sizes, high drop-out and expulsion rates, low academic performance in many schools, poor maintenance and incompetent administration. In 2007, LAUSD's dropout rate was 26 percent for grades 9 through 12. In 2013, evidence was found that the district was showing improvement, both in terms of dropout and graduation rates. An ambitious renovation program intended to help ease the overcrowded conditions has been completed. As part of its school-construction project, LAUSD opened two high schools in 2005 and four high schools in 2006.
History
Early history (1870–1961)
The Los Angeles Unified School District was preceded by two districts: the Los Angeles City School District, formed in 1870, and the Los Angeles City High School District, formed in 1890. The LACSD was formed to serve elementary and junior high students, originally starting with the same borders of the city of Los Angeles and annexing various smaller elementary school districts throughout its existence. The LACHSD was catered to high school students, and was a result of annexations of high school districts in the area.Formation (1961–1962)
On July 1, 1961, the Los Angeles City School District and the Los Angeles City High School District merged, forming the Los Angeles Unified School District. The merger left the Topanga School District and the Las Virgenes Union School District as separate remnants of the Los Angeles City High School District. The Las Virgenes district changed its name to the West County Union High School District. LAUSD annexed the Topanga district on July 1, 1962. Since the Las Virgenes Union School District had the same boundary as the remaining West County Union High School District, West County ceased to exist.Desegregation (1961–1980)
In 1961, Jackson vs. Pasadena School District was a local predecessor of Crawford v. Board of Ed. Of Los Angeles. Jar R. Jackson and Lucia Jackson, noticed that the local Washington Junior High School zone in the district was separated between white and black students. They filed a lawsuit against the district spearheaded by attorney Samuel Sheats, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Pasadena. In 1963, at the Supreme Court of California, the Jacksons won through an appeal after the Pasadena Superior Court dismissed their complaint. The court ruled typically for the times, that school boards needed to refrain from intentional actions towards segregating students despite the reasons for it. However, what was different about this ruling is that it demanded an active integration of school that had a substantial racial difference. A setback to this ruling, as well as other rulings in Los Angeles City School District and surrounding areas, was the language used to ask for integration. The language implied that integration was required if it was “reasonably feasible.” This caveat was used by local school districts to claim integration was not feasible due to financial or other limitations.In 1963, a lawsuit, Crawford v. Board of Ed. of Los Angeles was filed to end segregation in the district. The California Supreme Court required the district to come up with a plan in 1977. The board returned to court with what the court of appeal years later would describe as "one of if not the most drastic plan of mandatory student reassignment in the nation." A desegregation busing plan was developed to be implemented in the 1978 school year. Two lawsuits to stop the enforced busing plan, both titled Bustop, Inc. v. Los Angeles Bd. of Ed., were filed by the group Bustop Inc. and were petitioned to the United States Supreme Court. The petitions to stop the busing plan were subsequently denied by Justice Rehnquist and Justice Powell. California Constitutional Proposition 1, which mandated that busing follow the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution passed in 1979 with 70% of the vote. The Crawford v. Board of Ed. of Los Angeles lawsuit was heard in the Supreme Court in 1982. The Supreme Court upheld the decision that Proposition 1 was constitutional.
After the Crawford v. Board of Ed. Of Los Angeles was processed in Los Angeles, and just as the outcome was upheld by the Supreme Court, Judge Paul Égly, created the Los Angeles Monitoring Committee. Helen V. Smookler was the executive director of the committee and she managed 12 members from the community, ranging from all diverse backgrounds representative of the Los Angeles demographics. Each member spearheaded a sub-committee that was charged with overseeing and working on sustaining the desegregation of "all senior high schools, majority of junior highs, and most elementary schools." The committee's Integration project master plan expanded beyond the Brown ruling because Los Angeles was a hub of multiculturalism. Hence, the “ logical and sensible, and economical and inexpensive in time and effort and dollars” approach is to desegregate minority school pupils and integrate them into other schools. A goal of the integration process was to have small class sizes so that the diverse student population would have more individualized support when dealing with possible racial differences. By the mid-1980s the desegregation process was in compliance with the Supreme Court ruling and California propositions.
Attempts at reform (1990–2000)
Various attempts at program reform have been attempted. In one reform, individual schools were given more authority over day-to-day decisions and public school choice, authored by school board member Yolie Flores was implemented. In the 1990s, the Los Angeles Education Alliance for Restructuring Now and the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project were created, giving principals even more authority to make changes in curriculum hopefully benefiting students. Regardless, student achievement failed to increase.Later attempted reform led to the creation of eleven minidistricts with decentralized management and their own individual superintendents. Due to the cost of this additional bureaucracy, then Superintendent Romer called for reversing the measure and re-merging the minidistricts. United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing LAUSD teachers, supported this plan. Eight numbered Local Districts arose from the merger replacing the eleven districts.
From 1993 to 2000, LAUSD schools were required to continue year round schedules while 540 LAUSD schools had year-round schedules but were allowed to change them to traditional schedules. Due to community outcry, 539 of them reverted, especially those in the San Fernando Valley and Westside areas and several in the Harbor area.
Further reform and the COVID-19 pandemic (2000–present)
Assembly Bill 1381
After his election to Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa advocated bringing control of the public school system under his office, removing power from the Board of Education. This sparked some protest from teachers, LAUSD board members and many residents of communities not within the City of Los Angeles but served by LAUSD.In August 2006, after a compromise was brokered which allowed the mayor large control while retaining an elected school board and allowing input to be provided from surrounding cities, California State Assembly Bill 1381 passed, giving the mayor a measure of control over district administration. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the law on September 18, 2006. The board of education immediately filed suit to block the law, claiming that it violates the state constitution by allowing a local government to take over an educational agency.
AB 1381 was required to sunset on January 1, 2013, unless extended by the Legislature. On December 21, 2006, AB 1381 was ruled unconstitutional. The mayor appealed, but later dropped his appeal as two of the candidates he supported for school board were elected, essentially giving him indirect control over the school district.