"Amid the verdant lawn and leafy trees of the tidy Jefferson Senior High School campus, a police officer patrols the grounds and a sign warns that guns are illegal. … gang members frequently disrupt class, and teachers spend much of their time dealing with troublemakers. The biggest problem here, however, may be what you don't see - all the dropouts. With a 58 percent dropout rate, Jefferson has the worst dropout record in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest. … While half the students typically quit inner-city schools nationwide, Jefferson is at the lower end of the spectrum of so-called 'dropout factories' because of a concentration of factors that are rarely all present at schools in other cities. … A quarter-century ago, Latino students totaled 31 percent of the student body; now they account for almost 90 percent. Blacks comprise about 10 percent and a sliver are Asian or white."