Sacrifice in the Schools

The Los Angeles school system has too many students for its classrooms. Drastic steps must be taken to alleviate overcrowding. Fortunately the school staff has faced the crisis--and it is a crisis--head-on so that the school board will have time for reasoned consideration of its alternatives.

As Supt. Harry Handler outlines the problem, a rapidly increasing birth rate, major increases in immigration and the shortage of money for financing education have contributed to severe school overcrowding, especially in areas near downtown Los Angeles, East Los Angeles and in the eastern section of the San Fernando Valley. The overcrowding especially affects Asian, black and Latino students. The school district enrolls 675,000 children and adults; 565,000 of them are 18 and under. By 1990, the district will have another 70,000 students.

Even when all the new schools and additions now planned are built, the district still won’t have classroom seats for 55,000 students. The shortage will especially affect high school students. For example, in Southeast Los Angeles new schools and additions will add 9,000 seats, but there still won’t be room for 15,000 students in 1990.

In the best of worlds, the people would spend what they need to spend to educate the children. That is not the mood in California today. The state has passed some bond money for construction, but not nearly enough. Sixteen new schools are planned and 24 will be enlarged. Ninety-four of the district’s 618 schools have been placed on year-round sessions.

Now Handler has placed before the board a package of ideas that call for some sacrifice on the part of all sections of the city. He has recommended placing all schools on year-round sessions and undertaking a massive air conditioning project, reopening schools that have been closed, increasing class sizes in some inner-city schools, and changing the definition of an integrated school to shorten the ride for students who still must ride buses to buildings where there is room for them.

There is something in the staff plan for everyone to dislike. No one wants to increase class sizes, for example. It flies against all the current reform trends. But the numbers dictate action because the alternative is jammed schools, and little learning.