LOS ANGELES — The drop-out rate in the Los Angeles Unified School District declined in the 2007-08 academic year by 17 percent overall. However, schools in the city’s poorest and most ethnically diverse areas are still struggling to combat low graduation rates. Last year, more than 12,000 African-American and Latino students dropped out of school.

The schools in the LAUSD with the highest drop-out rates are also the schools serving a majority population of African-American and Latino students. In South Los Angeles, Crenshaw High School, Jefferson Senior High School, and Locke High School all have drop-out rates of between 30 and 40 percent.

DELANO, Calif. — The population of the City of Delano, California, has increased by more than 40,000 people (71 percent) since the 1960s.

Compared to the state of California, which has expanded steadily, Delano’s population spiked suddenly and dramatically in the 1990s.

This population boom was fueled by an influx of immigrants from Mexico in the 1990s. Since Delano’s economy is based almost solely around the agricultural industry, undocumented workers could find seasonal jobs in the fields. Many followed the cycle of crops, moving from one side of the country to the other throughout the year. But others began to settle down, expanding the farm working culture that had already been slowly established since the first immigrants began arriving in the 1930s. Inevitably, as newly settled farm working immigrants started cultivating families, the community began to expand internally. Pre-schools were built to accommodate the growing number of children, then elementary schools, middle schools, and finally, in the mid-2000s, high schools.

Delano is plagued by poverty, unemployment and an on-going turf war between two of California’s largest Latino rival gangs, the Nortenos and the Surenos. Half of the population over the age of 25 are high school drop-outs. And yet, the children of immigrants are making marked improvements in terms of education levels in recent years. Second generation immigrants are attending brand new high schools, have few social distractions and are surrounded by a community that supports and embraces their heritage.

Delano’s dropout rates have been steadily decreasing, while California’s dropout rates have been slowly increasing. In 2000, Delano’s dropout rates fell below the state average for the first time.

Delano Joint Union High School District has increased its Academic Performance Index (API) by 227 points (34 percent) since 1999.