Stephanie Clayton, one of the co-authors of Learning from L.A., produced background and briefing papers that were essential to the book itself, and as stand alone reports they provide valuable historical perspective on LEARN, desegregation, and school board elections since 1950.
The reports are available in pdf format by clicking the links below.
The 1989 teacher strike was one of the defining events of the school reform movements of the 1990s. The larger-than-conventional wage settlement coupled with the beginnings of Site Based Management made district finances precarious and increased the tension between teachers and the school administrators.
School board board elections changed enormously in character in the half century following 1950. Here, in more detail than possible in the book, Clayton shows the decline of elite politics and the rise of interest group politics, the extent to which race and desegregation influenced the course of elections, and the movement from election at large to election by district.
Desegregation drove school district politics for nearly three decades. Ultimately migration of whites out of the District and immigration of Latinos into Los Angeles swamped many of the possible remedies. But the history of desegregation, briefly told here brings to mind its best and worst behavior.
Additional papers are being prepared for this page.
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Date submitted: 07/01/2008
Date approved: