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Parents, students, and district officials are bracing for a possible shutdown of their public school system.
This Thursday, January 10th, 33,300 members of the LAUSD are planning to go on strike after a failure to negotiate with the district over salaries and class size.
As more reports come out on the strike, it's clear to most that this teachers' union strike is as much about politics as it is about money.
Last summer, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of barred governments from forcing non union employees to subsidize collective bargaining and union political activities. Teachers unions have since been forced to face more pressure and find new sources of revenue.
The LAUSD has been demanding and demanding for more though despite this all.
Despite the fact that only 22% of fourth-graders scored proficient in Math according to a report from 2017.
This stat is less than 30% of the average among other large city school districts.
In a city that heavily schools Hispanics, only 14% of Latinos were rated proficient, but 61% of white students scored well.
Parents of students have decided to start enrolling their children into Charter schools now.
These Charter schools are providing low-income parents some help with their tuition as well. But with high-demand families are still be put on waiting lists.
The high desire to not attend certain schools has caused many families to move to other districts with better public schools.
In result this has caused the LAUSD to lose 245,000 students over the past 15 years and 55,000 since 2013.
The LAUSD financial crisis is tied to their enrollment. These teachers are expecting to get paid more but can't see the problems in their students and enrollment.
For more information, please visit the Wall Street Journal.