L.A. School District

I was very pleased to read “Does This School System Work?” (editorial, June 5), which concedes, “It’s getting hard to argue with people who say that the LAUSD simply doesn’t work.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District’s most recent folly is the proposed scuttling of magnet programs and cutting of enrollment in the medical, math-science and performing arts programs at Van Nuys High School because of dictates promulgated by the L.A. School Board.

It just proves that even if something is functioning well within the school district it can still be at the peril of an unwieldy and unsympathetic bureaucracy.

Frankly, LAUSD is just too large and bureaucratic to effectively teach our children. Consider these facts: LAUSD covers 708 square miles and includes 4.2 million people. LAUSD would be the second largest city in America, if it was a city. LAUSD’s $4.2 billion budget is larger than the entire state budget of Arkansas; and with a work force of 61,224 people, LAUSD couldn’t even hold a company meeting in Dodger Stadium.

PAULA L. BOLAND

R-Granada Hills