Thursday, December 30, 2010

LAUSD Leads Nation In Term Of Charter School Students

(L.A. Times- December 30, 2010 10:13 a.m.)

According to the L.A. Times, the Los Angeles Unified School District continues to be #1 in regards to having more charter school students than any other school system in the country. This data was released by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

Detroit Public Schools has about 50,000 students in the charter school system, and L.A. Unified leads with about 68,500 students in charter schools as of last year. Overall, there is about 10%  of L.A. Unified students who attend charter schools.

Most charter schools in California are nonunion. In addition, charter schools are free publicly funded schools that are operated by nonprofits and some private companies. Due to the school-reform strategy of President Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, many of these schools are free from many regulations that tend to govern traditional schools.

All in all, according to the Center for Education Reform, California has 941 charter schools, more than 17% of the national total.

My question is: Are more parents sending their children to charter schools? Are private schools decreasing in size as far as student enrollment? And what about public education? Log in at http://edenterprise.blogspot.com to comment.

For more information about this story, visit http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/12/la-unified-leads-nation-by-far-in-number-of-charter-school-students.html.