District reader John B offers this response to the August 17 Press-Telegram story “Districts Tackle Enrollment Drop”:

I’m reading that almost every local school district, including LBUSD, has been experiencing ‘early grade’ enrollment decreases and anticipates more such drops. But I didn’t see anything in the story about *why* this is happening.

No explanation was offered in the story and none, apparently, was asked for.

Why is it, I wonder, that the population in Los Angeles County is steadily increasing yet ‘early grade’ public school enrollment is dropping?

Could at least part of the reason be because our public schools are, with a few notable exceptions, consistently failing to provide the quality education we, the taxpayers, pay them to deliver? If so, perhaps an increasing number of parents are finally becoming fed up with tolerating failing public schools and, instead, enrolling their children in private schools (as we have) where class sizes tend to be smaller, academic standards higher and, strangely enough, grade reports consistently elevated. Perhaps other parents are resorting to the home-schooling option.

But, again, why?

Could it be because last year 18 of LBUSD’s Tier 1 schools (that’s 25%) failed to meet national academic standards for what is referred to as “Adequate Yearly Progress” (or AYP)? That’s correct… one fourth of LBUSD Tier 1 schools “failed” last year. Some of these schools are actually on year 5 of Performance Improvement representing their 6th consecutive year of demonstrating such failures (Source: California Department of Education).

Beyond individual schools, LBUSD itself, as a district, has now been placed on a state-mandated performance improvement plan of its own. The reasons: Failure to meet district-wide AYP criteria in “English-Language Arts” and in its “graduation rate”.

How are these failures permitted, year after year, in a school district whose stated mission is “To support the personal and intellectual success of every student, every day”? (Source: LBUSD Guidelines for Parents and Students)

Interestingly enough, none of the other area school districts mentioned in the Press Telegram story (ABC, Bellflower, Downey, Norwalk-La-Mirada or Paramount) met their federally mandated “Adequate Yearly Progress” benchmarks last year either. Not one. If any of those districts fail to do so this year they will also be placed on state-mandated improvement plans just like LBUSD is.

But, strangely, there’s no mention of that information in this story either.

As recently as 2004 the LBUSD Superintendent’s office had this to say about District enrollment downward trends:

“As a result of lower total enrollment, the Long Beach Unified School District has alleviated overcrowding in elementary schools and should be able to accommodate all students in the years immediately ahead. Many elementary schools for the first time have been able to reduce class size in fourth and fifth grade.

If enrollment remains at or near the present level, school bonds from Measure A, approved by local voters in 1999, will allow enough schools and classrooms to be built to further reduce overcrowding and busing. The bonds are also being used to upgrade many existing older schools that will be modernized during this decade.” (Source: LBUSD Website)

Apparently in 2004 “lower total enrollment” was a *good* thing and because of it LBUSD anticipated having sufficient funds to build new schools and repair the ones we had. Yet in 2008 we are closing schools down and being asked to approve another $1.2 billion for school construction and renovation.

So what changed in four short years?

If LBUSD is truly so cash-strapped, perhaps they could find some way to reduce the $43,209,800 worth of “Professional/Consulting Services” in the ’08-’09 Adopted Budget or perhaps the $1,020,240 for “Travel and Conferences”. How about the $139,007 for the “Partnership Office” (whatever that might be) or maybe some of the $812,417 in “Nutrition Education” (Source: LBUSD Adopted Budget Fiscal Year 2008-2009, June 17, 2008).

Here’s a thought, perhaps for $812,417 we could purchase a few more school books and supplies and send a note home with the students; something along the lines of: “Please teach your children about nutrition”.

Just 10% of the total of the funds I just listed comes to $4.5 million dollars. How many books might that buy?

LBUSD will tell you that they are doing their part to cut their budget and, in fact, the ’08-’09 adopted budget does, indeed, reflect general fund cuts totalling about $61.4 million (or a little less than 1%). The problem, of course, is that even with these very modest cuts, the general fund expenditures still out-strip revenues by $6.5 million.

And one final LBUSD budget tidbit: Between last fiscal year and this, total district salaries and benefits were cut from $676 to $651 million (or a little under 4%). But the total budget for books and supplies was cut from $42.5 to $24 million (or 44%).

Sort of makes one wonder where LBUSD’s budget priorities truly lie.

Tags: District, education, long beach unified, school, standards