L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa on Urban School Reform
by Frederick M. Hess • Sep 19, 2011 at 8:09 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
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ShareThis afternoon, at AEI, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is visiting to discuss the challenges of urban school reform, how to drive school improvement in a time of shrinking revenues, and the lessons he's learned in office. Villaraigosa, a longtime union organizer and former speaker of the California Assembly, was first elected mayor in 2005 and is now midway through his second term. As mayor, he's broken some china and earned some scars--and I'm curious to hear what he has to say about all of it. Villaraigosa has been named the "charter dude of the year" by the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools (though, on second thought, that's probably not the official honorific), and will actually be receiving his award at the end of the event.
L.A. is America's second largest city and the LAUSD is America's second largest school district, enrolling nearly 700,000 students and boasting a $7.3 billion dollar budget. Just this past May, schools chief John Deasy stopped by to talk about his efforts. (You can check out the video of that event here.) Deasy described a district
