L.A.'s Public School Drop Rate

The L.A.Daily News reports:

Depending on who you listen to, Los Angeles Unified's high school dropout rate is as high as 50 percent, as low as 25 percent - or somewhere in between.

Whoever you believe, the district's poor graduation rate has become one of the central issues raised by critics - including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa - who say the city's economic future depends on improving Los Angeles' public schools, and that means producing a better educated generation of young people.

In bolstering his efforts to reform the city's education system, Villaraigosa has used figures from a Harvard University study that found that more than half of the high school students in the LAUSD drop out before getting a diploma.

The problem of getting accurate numbers from a failed monopoly isn't easy.Read the whole article.