How Education And Employment Work Together In Los Angeles
The largest public school system in California is the Los Angeles Unified School District. It is the second largest in the country, behind the New York City system. In 2005, the District served over 710,000 students, and employed more than 74,000. After the LA country government, the school system is the largest employer.
The entire city of Los Angeles and portions of several nearby localities are served by the District. It even has its own police department. Amazingly, if the system was a Fortune 500 company, it would rank at around 250. It has almost as many buses as the LA Transportation Authority. More than 500,000 meals per day are served up in school cafeterias.
The District is known for overcrowded schools, poor maintenance and incompetent administration. The graduation rates are not great either, leading to hordes virtually unemployable young people going out on the local job market. In addition, the District has long been negatively known for its laden bureaucracy. Various attempts to reform the system have been implemented, but none very.
The divisive school dropout issue has been at the center of school system reform discussions for quite some time. A recent study performed by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University postulated that only approximately 45 percent of LA students were matriculating within four years.
Lastly, a Washington, D.C. based public policy think tank estimated that one year's class of public school dropouts in time costs California over 38 billion dollars in lost wages, taxes and productivity over the former student's lifetimes.
About the Author
Matt Paolini is a education writer for CityBook.com, the family-safe online yellow pages, which carries an extensive directory regarding Los Angeles education and employment
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