Governing Urban School Districts
Efforts in Los Angeles to Effect Change
ResearchPublished Oct 31, 2006
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.
Topics
Document Details
- Copyright: RAND Corporation
- Availability: Web-Only
- Year: 2006
- Pages: 118
- Document Number: TR-428-LA
Citation
RAND Style Manual
Chicago Manual of Style
Augustine, Catherine H., Diana Epstein, and Mirka Vuollo, Governing Urban School Districts: Efforts in Los Angeles to Effect Change, RAND Corporation, TR-428-LA, 2006. As of September 23, 2024: https://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR428.html
Augustine, Catherine H., Diana Epstein, and Mirka Vuollo, Governing Urban School Districts: Efforts in Los Angeles to Effect Change. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2006. https://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR428.html.
The research described in this report was conducted within RAND Education for the Presidents’ Joint Commission on LAUSD Governance.
This publication is part of the RAND technical report series. RAND technical reports, products of RAND from 2003 to 2011, presented research findings on a topic limited in scope or intended for a narrow audience; discussions of the methodology employed in research; literature reviews, survey instruments, modeling exercises, guidelines for practitioners and research professionals, and supporting documentation; and preliminary findings. All RAND technical reports were subject to rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.
This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.
RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.