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2,000 jobs. joining us now to talk about this, antonio villaraigosa, mayor of los angeles. mr. mayor, thank you very much for joining us. you have been facing -- i wanted to ask you about this shortened school year. how will that affect the education of the kids? >> it will have an effect on the education of the kids. i would have preferred that the school district negotiated a cut in pay that didn't result in shortened school year but that was the best that they could do under the circumstances. i don't actually run the school district. i have about 20,000 kids in my partnership schools which...

Cutting thousands as well this year, even with this reduction. they are still looking at a very large deficit. in my own schools, in the partnership schools, one of the thing we're doing, we've aligned our swefls an aclu lawsuit that's beginning to question the disproportionate impact ever layoffs and senator on low performing schools where you usually have the least senior teachers and what has happened at many of our schools is you see just a revolving door, if you will, of attachers getting laid off because they are the least senior teachers. that has an impact on these schools that's dispr...

Changes to no child left behind and as a result, we could see as many as 5,000 schools closing. that sounds harsh, obviously, but long-term, when you look at the problems we're seeing, big picture, is this a good idea? >> it's a terrible idea. because the reason those schools have low performance is because most of them are serving very poor kids who don't speak english and who are low performing schools. >> how do you help them? >> you don't improve the schools by closing them. in fact, we're going to be pumping more money into doing things that don't work. we have no evidence that closing sc...

Way to help their children. tutoring is a great way to do it. particular schools can be a piece of the solution. those decisions should be made at the local school level, at the local community level. we'll hold folks accountable for results. let them figure out the best way to teach children. >> i hear you. but at the same time, don't you run the risk that if there is not a mandate there, that -- and you're relying on it to happen at the local level that you'll have some students who get stuck at underperforming or failing schools. and then they have no option for getting out. >> well, campbe...

School to take these kids. >> good report. how many u.s. schools and by extension, their schools are in trouble? according to the education department 12% of the country's schools produce 50% of its dropouts. 5,000 schools ranked among the lowest performing schools nationwide. the education department intends to invest $4 billion into its efforts to try to turn these lowest achieving american schools around. the department says there's strong evidence turning schools around is having an impact and significantly higher scores in mouth and reading and significantly more students graduating. lo...