Change The LAUSD

“The cost of L.A. Unified's digital student tracking system rises to $189 million.” 

“Last week, the school board approved $40.3 million for what the technology division says will be the last of six large chunks of bond money needed to fix the problems.”

Add a lawsuit  here, a lawsuit there, paying a former superintendent or two, a wasted program or 100, a superfluous bureaucracy, plus the money for the worthless tests and the test preparation materials that do nothing but enrich the publishers.

What is left for on campus needs?

They are controlling, do whatever they want to, and never apologize -- that is the LAUSD.

It doesn’t matter who the Superintendent is, who the Board of Education members are or who the top district administrators are.

The LAUSD does what it wants to and never apologies:

Recently, more than ever, the media is filled with headlines and stories about investigations into LAUSD food services and the F.B.I. investigating the iPad mess, and much, much more.

Don’t forget the tens of millions wasted on MiSIS; starting the school year during the intense heat of August without all classrooms having functioning air conditioning; and the secrecy behind the search for a new superintendent.

LAUSD just added $4.5 million to the previous settlement of $30 million for Miramonte, a situation the district could have prevented.

“Alameda County Judge George Hernandez Jr. ruled that students ‘have suffered and continue to suffer severe and pervasive educational deprivations’ as the ‘direct result of Jefferson's failure to provide the students with appropriate course schedules.’"

-LA Times, October 8, 2014

As the students of the LAUSD approach their first day of school, district officials have sought to reassure the public that last year’s MiSiS Crisis will not be repeated. While admitting that “the $133.6-million computer program still isn’t fully functional” they told the Los Angeles Daily News in July “that placing students in the proper classes won’t be a problem this year.” Included in the steps being taken to ensure that the nation’s second largest school district will not be plunged into “MiSiS caused chaos” again was an assurance that they would “stop updating the system’s software for nearly a week before and after campuses open” on August 18.

The cost of MiSIS is now $133 million. 

No one knows the costs of the iPad mess and the health costs to students who did not get air conditioning because the money was spent on iPads and WiFi enhancement.

The Food Services investigation is still taking place. What about the waste, loss of time, and heavy caloric foods of Breakfast in the Classroom?

How much has been spent on housing teachers in teacher jails and paying their substitutes?

What is the cost of the outside law firms and investigators?

Doing our best to waste your tax and bond money from Chatsworth to San Pedro, to mismanage our personnel from Sylmar to South Gate, to fail your children from Tujunga to Topanga, to serve them lousy food from the mountains to the sea--we are LAUSD.

People in the know have been saying that the well entrenched bureaucracy, particularly the downtown administrators, needs to go.

Now with the audit of LAUSD Food Services revealing graft, corruption, and waste, plus the MiSIS mess and the iPad scandal, it’s past time for them to leave.Where should they go?