I grew up in southern California, but was actually born on the east coast. My parents moved to the LA area when I was 1, back in 1973. I entered kindergarten in 1977.

When I got a bit older, I asked my mom why they chose the particular area they did, rather than LA city. Her answer? "LA Unified School District is terrible."

I learned this more directly when I was in high school in the mid-late '80s, as I made some friends with LA kids who were in that district. They told me of the rampant gang problem in their schools due to busing (even though there were no gangs living in their area), as well as a culture of awful teachers. These teachers were basically fire-proof between the teachers union and LAUSD's very lax policy of how they handled teacher misbehavior. The gang problem was so bad that teachers and administrators were overlooking all but the most egregious cases of bullying and violence.

In short, 1980s LAUSD schools were a complete disaster area. They were dangerous. They were highly bureaucratic. The teachers were mostly checked out. The learning environment was terrible.

I went to public school my entire academic life (even college), but my local district was small and not part of LAUSD. My schools were highly performing, mostly because of parents who stressed education for their kids. I did have some shitty teachers who were protected by the union, but it was nothing like the situation in LAUSD. Most importantly, there were no gang members or major delinquents in my schools. They were all suburban kids like me. The few problem kids were shipped off to the local "continuation school" to get their act together. My district and LAUSD were geographically very close, but there was a world of difference.


LAUSD dates back to 1961, when the Los Angeles City School District and the Los Angeles City High School District merged.

Since then, it has grown tremendously, due to the population explosion in LA between 1961 and the 2000s. All of the problems I heard about from my friends in the '80s are still there. The gang problem is a little bit better because there are fewer gangs today compared to 30-40 years ago, but everything else is either just as bad or even worse. It has lost a LOT of students in the past 20 years due to how terrible it is.

This past week, LAUSD teachers went on strike, and schools actually had to shut down for 3 days: https://ktla.com/news/local-news/lau...-deal-reached/

This is pretty bad to just lose 3 school days in the middle of the academic year, with little warning. Many parents were left scrambling regarding what to do about this, especially involving younger students who cannot stay home by themselves while the parents were at work.

LAUSD has about 430,000 students. They've actually LOST about 300,000 students since 2002, due to the horrible conditions in the district, between people with kids leaving the district and others enrolling their kids in private schools. The district is a complete failure, yet there is no accountability because of the perpetually left-wing LA City Council.

LAUSD is the second largest district in the country, and spends $7.8 billion, some of which is poorly allocated and wasted.

It's time to break up this behemoth.

It really is amazing how bad Democrats are at running big cities.