California Has Few Academy Programs
The Pasadena School District, with seven academies at its four high schools, has perhaps the most ambitious academies program in California.
A Space Academy boasts the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology as partners. The Graphics Arts Academy is allied with several universities and printing companies, as well as the Printing Industries Assn. of Southern California.
In the Los Angeles Unified School District, there are academy programs in business-finance and travel-tourism.
But statewide, there are only 5,000 students enrolled in academy programs. The state cannot provide money for all the districts that want them, and an effort to more than double the existing $3-million academies budget has been stalled by the state’s economic crisis.
Further, the business community for the most part has not made a sustained commitment to the concept. Unlike in Philadelphia, none of the school districts with academies has an independent organization to encourage and coordinate business involvement.
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