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Governing Urban School Districts
Efforts in Los Angeles to Effect Change
Many urban school district students are dropping out and few of the remaining ones reach state or district achievement goals. These problems make governing urban schools both difficult and important. In 2005–06, the governance structure of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) was examined, debated, criticized, and praised by several different constituencies, including the mayor, who sought to take over the district. This report focuses on the bid for mayoral control of LAUSD and the competing efforts on behalf of various stakeholders. It sets the struggles that took place in Los Angeles in a national context, drawing on the literature on educational governance to analyze the political process and the resulting policy change. New legislation ushers in an untried governance system with the potential to both improve and worsen the governance of the district. The legislation allows the mayor to develop new approaches to schooling in three high schools and their feeder schools. If this cluster management project demonstrates improvements, the approaches he employs could be applied to other schools in the district. Evaluating this endeavor and determining its effects on student outcomes is vital.
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Contents
Chapter One:
Introduction
Chapter Two:
State, City, and District Contexts
Chapter Three:
Governing the Los Angeles Unified School District
Chapter Four:
Assessments of Local Governance Options
Chapter Five:
Conclusion
The research described in this report was conducted within RAND Education for the Presidents’ Joint Commission on LAUSD Governance.
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