California Conservative

During the past five decades, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has embezzled, extorted, and wasted billions of tax dollars, while vandalizing the young minds of millions of students. So when LAUSD union members blame taxpayers and parents for not providing enough money, you’ve got to appreciate their gall.

When I began writing about the LAUSD last year, I was criticized for playing fast and loose with LAUSD’s budget numbers. But when I linked one LAUSD number to my blog, LAUSD closed the link. After several links were closed, I finally saved a PDF file from former superintendent Romer’s 2004 bio which claimed he managed LAUSD’s $13.3 billion annual budget (2004). That link was also disconnected a day or two after my report, but it’s on my hard drive.

About LAUSD’s current budget, this front-page Times story said this:

After becoming schools chief in November, retired Navy vice admiral Brewer called for the report to learn what was working and what wasn’t, and to create a road map toward reforming the mammoth district with its roughly 78,000 employees, 700,000 students and $11-billion total annual budget.

Did LAUSD’s budget really shrink by $2.4 billion?

As this 2006 report shows, LAUSD’s “construction and repair budget” is, by itself, $19.2 billion dollars! But you won’t find these numbers on LAUSD’s website. And if California taxpayers are spending $11 billion plus $19 billion, LAUSD’s budget may be closer to $30 billion, give or take a few billion.

By the way, that’s more than four times LA City’s $6.75 billion annual budget!

“Well, c’mon ex-Liberal, LAUSD serves a lot of students!”

So let’s see: $30 billion dollars ÷ 700,000 students = $43,000 per student. And since only $2000 and $9000 actually gets into our classrooms, where does the rest go? No one seems to know, no one is accountable for those missing funds, and the Democrats who control LA and Sacramento don’t want to know.

Like Social Security, LAUSD operates a pyramid scheme. In order to pay for LAUSD’s growing retirements, they require ever-increasing numbers of employees to pay the bills. As long as retired populations are growing and living longer, pensions are threatened. At last count, LAUSD’s Health and Welfare deficit was, by itself, $10 billion in the red.

To keep this scam hidden, the teacher unions kick back a portion of these billions in the form of union dues that support politicians (e.g., Democrats) who won’t expose the scam. Democrats and school administrators claim they need more money for the children, but the more taxpayers spend the less education our children receive.

LA Times:

(Superintendent) Brewer volunteered specific, ambitious academic benchmarks. He said that by 2013, he intended to have more than 90% of schools surpass a score of 800 on the state’s Academic Performance Index. The index grades schools on a scale from 200 to 1,000 based on student test scores in math, English and other subjects; the state’s goal for every school is 800. Only five of L.A. Unified’s five dozen comprehensive high schools surpassed 800 in 2006.

REALLY? Without more esteem-building grade inflation, true 800s are as unrealistic as they are today. Many so-called high-performance students are forced to take remedial courses in college before they can qualify for real college courses. Last February, the National Assessment Governing Board reported that performance has fallen while test scores are up. This report, coupled with systemic incompetence and 30-50 percent drop-out rate and decades of failure, demonstrate LAUSD inability to correct itself.

After fifty years of failure, how can Angelenos expect LAUSD to fix itself in the next six years? Brewer intends to improve scores, but LAUSD’s decades of intent haven’t helped our children. And if Brewer fails like Romer failed, how do we hold them accountable when he does fail? We can’t confiscate his assets or chop his hands off, so it’s unlikely that his six-figure income and perks will be much of a deterrent for failure.

Instead of putting more money into the hands of UTLA and LAUSD, voters should demand school vouchers and charters. Every LAUSD student should be assigned a number and given a budget to be used in the public, private, or charter school of their choice.

If we divide LAUSD’s 700,000 students into LAUSD’s $30 billion budget, we can project a $43,000 annual per-student budget. Parents should demand half of that number, or $21,500 per year per student directly from state funding FAR from LAUSD’s sticky fingers.

Parents of at-risk students could receive authorization closer to the full $43,000 (or whatever the LAUSD’s gross per-student budget is) for schools that train or rehabilitate at-risk students. The funding could also be applied to the California Youth Authority for wards during incarceration.

Democrats loathe vouchers and charters because LAUSD skims millions of dollars for Democrats who ignore these problems. Until voters start electing pro-voucher and pro-charter candidates, the only thing going up will be taxes.

For those who don’t know who supports or opposes vouchers or charters, here’s the test: Never vote for candidates who receive support or endorsements from ANY teacher union (UTLA, CTA, NEA).

Until parents control funding with vouchers or charters, LAUSD has no incentive to reform itself. Any child who enters LAUSD schools today risks violence and institutional retardation. Charters and vouchers are our only way out.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Author: Clark Baker, Corruption, Education, Los Angeles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.