Maria Brenes

Maria Brenes

More than 300 students, parents and customs members from the Eastside of Los Angeles and South Los Angeles demonstrated during the offset week of Apr in front of the Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters to demand that Local Command Funding Formula (LCFF) dollars exist directed to schools based on a comprehensive prepare of needs that includes bookish outcomes and neighborhood conditions.

Passed by the California Legislature in 2013, the formula provides school districts with additional resources specifically for foster youth, English learners and low-income students. It is an important starting indicate for closing the achievement and funding gap that has plagued California schools for years. New dollars for high-needs students provide schoolhouse districts and their respective communities the opportunity to invest wisely.

Advancement Project, in close collaboration with Community Coalition and InnerCity Struggle, has produced a Educatee Need Index. The index is a rigorous, research-based ranking of the highest-needs schools within the Los Angeles Unified School District that best meet the criteria for additional funding nether the new funding formula. For case, in the top 10 highest-needs high schools, 284 students drop out, compared to 17 students at the lowest-needs high schools, according to the Educatee Need Index. This shows that the needs of schools within the commune are vastly different.

Marqueece Harris-Dawson

Marqueece Harris-Dawson

The Student Need Index not but measures how students are doing in the classroom only as well takes into account the neighborhood conditions that tin can negatively affect a student'south bookish success. The index measures target student populations specifically highlighted in the new funding formula: foster youth, English learners and low-income students. The Educatee Need Index also measures neighborhood conditions, such as exposure to violence, access to youth programming and early on care and pedagogy. Schools are ranked on a calibration from lowest to highest need.

The recently released budget proposal by LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy is promising but does not target sufficient resources toward the schools with the highest concentration of needs. We suggest that the district marshal with the spirit of the new funding law and adopt the Student Need Alphabetize equally the principal guide for distributing additional state education funds information technology will receive. This is a high-stakes moment regarding how to best invest resource on behalf of high-needs students. The LCFF is bringing more than $800 million to the commune to close the achievement gap for these students, simply the district needs a better approach for how to invest these dollars. By doing so, information technology would ensure that investments are targeted strategically and are guided by a comprehensive prepare of objective data.

John Kim

John Kim

Schools in the Eastside of Los Angeles, Northeast Valley and Southward Los Angeles accept historically faced the challenges of being under-resourced and neglected. This has resulted in lack of opportunities for students living in our communities. While LAUSD has many schools with needs, we urge the commune to target resources to the highest-needs schools.

Our Student Need Index identifies 242 schools with greater needs, thus providing an innovative framework for targeting resources for higher impact. These schools are burdened by unjust and unequal conditions that must exist addressed if we expect to dramatically close the achievement gap. For instance, these schools:

  • Have virtually three times the number of students who are classified as English language learners;
  • Have more than than three times the number of students that are beingness expelled or suspended;
  • Take iii.5 times the number of students that are in foster care; and
  • Are most 5 times as probable to exist exposed to gun violence.

In recent years, the district has focused on schoolhouse transformation efforts that have led to progress. Graduation rates are on the rising, pause rates are failing, students are now required to complete the higher class requirements and overcrowding has been alleviated. These gains are due to years of the community demanding justice and insisting that our neighborhoods are prioritized. The district tin farther better the odds for students by using state education funds to hire additional counselors, increase school-based health services, add together sufficient "restorative justice" coordinators to help reduce suspension and expulsion rates, and strengthen parent engagement for the highest-needs schools.

As the largest school district in California, LAUSD has the opportunity to dramatically move the needle on equity for the highest-needs schools inside its boundaries. We telephone call upon our district leadership to adopt this index every bit a controlling tool and direct funds to the schools that need them most for the programs and services that will make a real divergence. That is what is needed to close the accomplishment gap and fulfill the promise of offering a quality education to every Los Angeles student, regardless of where they alive.

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Marqueece Harris-Dawson is president of Community Coalition, John Kim is co-managing director of Advocacy Projection, and Maria Brenes is executive director of InnerCity Struggle.  All 3 organizations are based in Los Angeles.

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