The mysterious case of LAUSD’s finances: Richard J. Riordan and Tim Rutten
Now that the drama over the Los Angeles Unified School District’s superintendent is behind us, there are some other, deeper issues worth exploring.
For example, ask anybody who’s looked at the budget for one of America’s urban school districts how much money really is spent per pupil or what the connection is between the size of that expenditure and what students actually achieve and the answers are like to be:
“Hard to say” … “Not clear” … “It’s controversial” … “Good question”… Nobody knows.”
This year, LAUSD — America’s second-largest public school system — will spend a little more than $7 billion to educate nearly 600,000 students. Ask how much will be spent on each of those pupils in this
