Superintendent Beutner delivers annual State of Schools address recognizing the school district for record-high graduation rates, record-low suspension rates, lowering the number of student absences and improving math and English skills at every grade level
LOS ANGELES (Aug. 15, 2019) – Superintendent Austin Beutner today delivered the annual State of Schools address and recognized the progress across the board being made in schools across the Los Angeles Unified School District.
“Thanks to the dedication and hard work of those in this room and the 60,000 teachers, support staff and colleagues, we are making real progress,” Superintendent Beutner said.
Los Angeles Unified, for the first time in many years, is making progress across all education indicators, such as:
- Record-high graduation rate. Graduation rate in excess of 78%
- Chronic absences down.5% decrease in chronic absences, reversing years of increases
- Record-low suspension rates. Only 4,000 days, an all-time low
- Academic improvement.59% improvement in English and 1.85% in math
- Decade high reclassification of English Learners. 23% of English learners were reclassified last year
- Record high number of students taking college-placement tests. 80% of 11th-graders took the SAT
- New schools. 238 new schools and campus additions over the past 20 years
While celebrating the progress made by educators and students, Beutner recognized that Los Angeles Unified still has a long way to go until every student receives the best education possible.
Beutner spoke to the lack of funding provided for public education. As a comparison, New York provides about $29,000 to educate a student while Los Angeles only invests about $16,000.
“There’s no circumstance where cuts alone will provide the money to adequately fund schools, and there’s no way to recombine parts of $16,000 and turn it into $29,000,” he said.
The Superintendent outlined the significant progress made by Los Angeles Unified this past year in cutting costs and reducing bureaucracy to shift resources to schools. The school district cut administrative costs by more than $100 million through a combination of layoffs, procurement savings and other efficiencies, and reduced healthcare costs by almost $100 million by working with labor partners.
The Superintendent discussed the steps being taken to reduce the bureaucracy for those working at schools and for the families the schools serve. The school district cut unnecessary paperwork for school leaders by about one-third this past year, streamlined how maintenance work at schools will be done and created a new online hiring tool to make it easier to staff schools. And fees and bureaucratic requirements placed on families were eliminated to make it easier for them to participate at their students’ schools.
The Superintendent also highlighted the continued efforts to restore schools at the center of everything Los Angeles Unified does, starting with providing more resources for schools and the communities they serve.
Superintendent Beutner closed his address acknowledging that Los Angeles Unified needs to better engage with the more than five million people who live in the communities impacted by the work of the school district.
“We have hard work ahead to build trust and we have to start with more transparency in all we do,” Beutner said. Each and every one in Los Angeles is impacted by the work we do and Los Angeles Unified needs everyone engaged in, and supporting, public education.”
The Superintendent gave his address to nearly 2,000 administrators, educators and community partners at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
“This building’s architect said his desire was to create ‘the best, best, best whatever we could do,’” Beutner said. “The same commitment needs to be made for public education.”
KLCS-TV will broadcast the State of the Schools address at 1 p.m. Aug. 16, 6 p.m. Aug. 17 and 7 a.m. Aug. 18.
The Superintendent’s full remarks can be found here (ver en español), while more information about the indicators for progress and sources for the data is available here.