The 2016–2017 California County Scorecard of Children’s Well-Being found that although 41 percent of students in LA are reading at grade level in third grade, only 33 percent of Latino children and 28 percent of African-American children hit that benchmark, compared to 66 percent of white children. These gulfs in racial performance exist throughout all age groups, including 8th-grade math proficiency, college math course readiness and high school graduation rates.

The study also found that African-American and Latino children are less likely than white children to have a usual source of health care, less likely to be a healthy weight and are more likely to be living in communities of concentrated poverty.

“We saw this across counties, with the disparity in race and ethnicity, especially looking at the education indicators,” said Jessica Dalesandro Mindnich, director of research for Children Now. “And in thinking about the diversity of Los Angeles County and the state more generally, I think that has potentially significant impacts for our future workforce.”

The scorecard has been produced every two years since 2008 and studied all 58 of California’s counties in the areas of health, education, child welfare and economic well-being. Overall, LA county children showed mostly gains in the areas of education and health since 2014, but mostly losses in child welfare and economic well-being. LA County’s youth received 2.5 out of five stars in education, 2.5 out of five stars in health and 3.5 out of five stars in child welfare and economic well-being.

Children Now used to produce a scorecard that gave each county a letter grade but switched to the star system in multiple categories starting with the 2014 report.

“Folks kind of told us that grades really weren’t helpful, comparing, ‘This is the best county versus the worst county,'” Mindnich said. “What we heard on the ground was that there are 1,000 things like that and it’s not really helpful to us. And so we did want to give some top-level context to these indicators, so we felt five stars is a little more intuitive.”

Some key findings of the study include:

• 33 percent of LA County 8th-graders met or exceed state standards in math, compared to 36 percent for the state.
• 54 percent of white 8th-graders met or exceed state standards in math, compared to 23 percent of Latino students and 16 percent of African-American students.
• 79 percent of LA County children are not living in communities of concentrated poverty, compared to 83 percent for the state. But 97 percent of white children are not living in concentrated poverty, compared to 71 percent for Latino children and 73 percent for African-American children.
• 59 percent of LA County children are a healthy weight, compared to a 62 percent state average. But 72 percent of white children are a healthy weight, compared to 53 percent of Latino children and 59 percent of African-American children. Overall, the county was up from 53 percent in 2014.

“I think overall some of the things that really stuck out to me were places where we saw vast improvement, in particular, in kids that were a healthy weight,” Mindnich said. “We saw improvements across the state and in most counties, and that really reflects years of dedication to reducing childhood obesity rates, so that was a really good sign for us.”

Dual language immersion students at Vista Del Valle Academy in San Fernando.

With California’s voters passing Proposition 58 this week, millions of students will now have increased access to bilingual education. That’s especially good news for LA Unified, where the district’s English language learners significantly trailed their peers at other large districts in the state on the most recent standardized tests.

While LA Unified had plans to expand bilingual education with or without Prop. 58, the process will now be streamlined, as schools will be free to offer recommendations to parents on bilingual education, and parents won’t be required to sign a waiver form.

LA Unified leaders proudly announced the district’s improved overall performance on the state’s standardized tests at an August press conference, as its students made jumps in both English language arts and math. Superintendent Michelle King pointed out that the increases “represent some of the highest gains that were achieved among urban districts in California.”

But one statistic that was not mentioned, and certainly not cheered, was the performance of the district’s English language learners (ELLs) in comparison to other urban districts.

While the district, the state and many subgroups saw growth on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) tests — also known as the Smarter Balanced tests — growth for ELLs at LA Unified was close to stagnant, and among the 10 largest districts in the state, they were tied for last on both the math and English language arts (ELA) tests.

“At the end of the day, let’s face it, we are not happy with the performance of English learners and we definitely need to do better,” said Hilda Maldonado, director of LA Unified’s Multilingual and Multicultural Division.

• Read more: Dual language immersion programs will grow at LAUSD with or without Prop. 58

Three percent of LA Unified’s ELL students scored proficient, meeting or exceeding the standard on the ELA test, and 6 percent were proficient in math, numbers that reflect only a single percentage point improvement in the math score over last year. Statewide, 13 percent of English learners were proficient on the ELA test and 12 percent were proficient on the math test. San Diego’s ELLs scored a 25 percent proficiency rate on the ELA test, which was first among the 10 largest districts, and a 23 percent proficiency rate on the math test, which was second. San Francisco had 20 percent of its ELLs score proficient in English, which was second highest, and 27 percent score proficient in math, which was the highest.

As the largest district in the state, with over 557,000 students — not counting those enrolled in independent charters — LA Unified also has the highest number of English learners, at over 141,000, or roughly 25 percent of the student body. LA Unified dwarfs all other districts, as San Diego, the second-largest district, has roughly 130,000 students, with 19 percent of them ELLs. San Francisco, with roughly 55,000 students, has 30 percent ELLs.

“It is definitely fair to compare us to other school districts … but we are three, four times larger than everybody else, so for us to impact a whole system takes a lot more than everybody else,” Maldonado said.

When asked to explain why San Francisco’s ELLs perform so well, Christina Wong, special assistant to the superintendent at San Francisco Unified, said the district has a long-term investment in English learner programs and bilingual that is typically far ahead of other districts because of a lawsuit from the 1970s. In the Lau v. Nichols case, the California Supreme Court ruled San Francisco Unified was depriving English learners of their civil rights by providing an inadequate education. As a result of the ruling, San Francisco has been invested in developing programs for English learners for decades.

“We have the Lau vs. Nichols consent decree from the 1970s, and since then San Francisco must ensure their English learners have access to the core curriculum,” Wong said. “And so basically the district needed to find ways to support English learners and make sure they had access, and so one way was to develop and grow bilingual programs so that students would have access to the core content.”

The use of bilingual and dual language programs was found in a 2014 Stanford study to be more effective long-term for English learners. “The results show that while students in English immersion programs perform better in the short term, over the long term students in classrooms taught in two languages not only catch up to their English immersion counterparts, they eventually surpass them both academically and linguistically,” the study said.

San Francisco, as a result of its long-term focus on English learners, has far more dual language and bilingual programs than LA Unified, which may account for its high achievement. Roughly 30 percent of San Francisco’s ELLs are enrolled in bilingual or dual language  programs, compared to LA Unified, which has under 2 percent of ELLs enrolled.

“I think it’s just part of (San Francisco’s) history to serve their language populations than compared to the way they have been for LAUSD,” Maldonado said.

In San Diego, the reasons for success were not as easy to pinpoint as San Francisco’s. San Diego Unified Superintendent Cindy Marten, who is in her fourth year running the district, summed it up as simple hard work and focus.

“We don’t believe in silver bullets and we don’t believe in quick fixes. We don’t believe children are test scores. We believe that when you meet children where they are, you recognize their strengths and abilities, you see language as a strength and asset, and you give them support in the classroom instead of pullout programs,” Marten said.

Of San Diego’s English learners, roughly 11 percent are enrolled in dual language or bilingual programs. Marten said one key change the district has made over the last few years is getting each teacher specific training on teaching English learners.

“We have a vision that every teacher needs to be an English learner expert. So we have English learner support teachers, and our model was for the expert to help each and every teacher at each school become an expert in the classroom,” Marten said.

Some critics have pointed to LA Unified’s ELL problems as one of budgetary focus. Earlier this year, the district lost its appeal to the California Department of Education on how it spends hundreds of millions of dollars in state funds that are supposed to be directed to its neediest students, including English learners. According to the state, LA Unified’s use of $450 million over the last two fiscal years on special education does not qualify it as also having been spent on three needy subgroups — foster youth, English learners and low-income students — despite the district insisting that it did.

State law requires extra money be targeted to these groups and also provides extra state money for them, and the ruling essentially found that the district was using creative accounting and short-changing them to help balance the books.

The district has also been the target of a lawsuit that was filed last year over how it was spending the disputed funds, and a 2015 study by UC Berkeley and Communities for Los Angeles Student Success (CLASS) coalition also found that the bulk of the district’s Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) dollars “has seeped into the district’s base budget with … little apparent regard to the students who generate the new dollars.”

LA Unified had no immediate comment on the state’s ruling, but in response to the lawsuit in 2015, the district issued a statement: “We believe that this group has misinterpreted the LCFF.  The Legislature clearly granted school districts — which serve  predominantly low-income students, foster youth and English language learners – the highest degree of flexibility in determining student program needs.”

LA Unified has also had problems with the federal government in regard to English learners. In 2011, the district settled a complaint by the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which found that the district had failed to provide adequate services to English learners. As part of the settlement, the LA Unified school board passed a new English Learner Master Plan aimed at improving services for ELLs.

At a September committee meeting, several board members expressed dismay over the test scores, including the performance of English learners. Board member George McKenna, summing up his colleagues’ sentiments, said, “I’m as frustrated as I can possibly be. The data is miserable.”

LA Unified has shown it is investing in dual language programs and there are also signs it is making improvements to how it teaches English learners. In May, the district announced that its long-term English learner population — students who require six or more years of special English instruction — has been reduced by 6.4 percent since 2013. The district also added 12 new dual language or bilingual programs this year.

Donald Trump

*UPDATED

Education leaders in Los Angeles reached out to their schools and communities a day after Donald Trump was elected president to address “feelings of fear and anxiety.”

During his campaign, Trump had vowed to deport millions of immigrants and build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. LA Unified’s student body is 74 percent Latino, and an estimated 10 percent of LA’s population is estimated to be undocumented immigrants. In February, the LA Unified school board voted unanimously to make the district a “safe zone” for undocumented immigrants.

On the day after the election, LA Unified leaders looked to calm fears. While protests and student walkouts were reported by the Los Angeles Times at Berkeley High School, UCLA, USC, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, Cal State LA, downtown Los Angeles and Oakland. ABC7 reported Wednesday afternoon that students at Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools marched out of class.

Here are how some LA Unified leaders are reacting to the election and communicating with teachers and students:

• LA Unified Superintendent Michelle King said in a statement, “The 2016 Presidential Election provides many teachable moments in L.A. Unified’s classrooms. We teach our students that they have a right to freedom of speech. They are also allowed to participate in peaceful demonstrations on campus during non-instructional times, within parameters set by administrators. They are not permitted to leave school. Because fears and emotions may be running high after the election results, we directed school-based staff to talk with students, and if necessary, identify those who may need support. In an abundance of caution, district staff also has initiated conversations about student rights. At LA Unified, the safety of students and staff remains our highest priority.”

• LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer said in a statement, “As students and staff arrive at school today, we know there may be feelings of fear and anxiety, especially within our most vulnerable communities. The district is providing additional supports to those who need it. With emotions running high, our schools will continue to be the anchors of our neighborhoods. We ask our teachers and school leaders to continue their amazing work of listening to our students and striving together to assure that public education is the great civil rights engine of democracy. As we do every day, we will take all necessary steps to ensure the safety and well-being of our students, staff and schools. And the work with our families to fulfill the American Dream continues today.”

• In an email to teachers titled, “Meet Hate with Love Always, Especially Today,” Magnolia Public Schools CEO Caprice Young wrote, “Helping students make sense of politics is especially difficult when we have difficulty understanding it ourselves. No matter where you stood in this election, today our job is to come together. As Magnolia leaders, we work to create socially responsible global citizens who make decisions based on evidence. Ignorance is ended by education. Enmity is stopped through understanding. Reach to teach … listen to your kids. Use this confusion as an opportunity to rise together.”

• In an email to staff, Alliance College-Ready Public Schools CEO Dan Katzir wrote, “Last night’s election was a surprise for many of us. I know that many of you, like me, have emotions about what this election means. I share your distress at the hateful and mean-spirited discourse of the campaign, the exposure of the deep divides in our country, and the scapegoating of the very communities we serve. Despite our own possible distress, now is the time for us to be strong for our scholars and families, many of whom are feeling more vulnerable than ever. Our mission has never been more urgent. Our daily work has never been more important.”

• The LA teachers union, UTLA, is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, which endorsed Hillary Clinton. In a statement today, AFT President Randi Weingarten said, “Though heartbroken at this result, this was about economic change and a yearning for change, not an undermining of all things we hold dear like public schools. Across the country in local races—from ballot initiatives in Georgia and Massachusetts, to school boards in New Orleans and Corpus Christi, to levies that will support schools in Cincinnati, Cleveland and the San Francisco Community College District, to Proposition 55 in California and much more—voters chose to lift up and protect the institution of public education. Our members across the country worked hard not just for Hillary, but for their local schools, their hospitals, their public services—and many prevailed.”

• On its Facebook page, UTLA leaders wrote that “we have challenging times ahead. But, we have been through hard times before, and we have nurtured seeds of crucial social movements during difficult times – the seeds for the civil rights movement, the movement for language rights, environmental justice movements, movements for LGBTQ rights, and more, were planted, nurtured, and strengthened during some of the most challenging political times in U.S. history. We will continue that history, no matter what lies ahead.”

*This article has been updated to add that students at Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools marched out of class.

Oryla Wiedoeft (Credit: Venice High website)

While statistically Venice High School was the most-improved LA Unified high school in 2015-16 based on state test scores, the real story behind the jump is participation: how many students actually took the tests and how the school’s administration turned the tide of a strong “opt-out” movement that had swept through the campus.

The school’s numbers on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) standardized tests — also known as the Smarter Balanced tests after the consortium that administers them — are impressive, as the school jumped from a 25 percent proficiency rate of students meeting or exceeding the English language arts standard in 2015 to 67 percent in 2016, and from a 12 percent proficiency rate to 41 percent on the math test. Both of these increases were the best in LA Unified for high schools.

In 2015, roughly 80 percent of the juniors eligible to take the test opted out. But in 2016, after school officials put in a significant effort to get students interested in the test, roughly 80 percent participated, and as a result the school went from scoring well below the district average in 2015 to well above in 2016.

Venice was also one of the most improved schools in the district from 2015 to 2016 on a new ranking system released last week by the California Charter Schools Association. The system evaluates every public charter and traditional school in the state by comparing schools with similar demographics, including race and socioeconomic status.

The reasons for Venice’s low participation on the tests in 2015 were varied. The year before, which was the first year of the Smarter Balanced tests, the school’s principal left after the first semester, and during the spring semester — when the test was administered — the school had three different interim principals.

“There wasn’t a lot of communication from the administration, because we went through several principals, about the importance of the test or what the test entailed,” said Jennifer Lisowski, an English teacher at Venice. “I think some of the juniors, they were just scared and they were nervous. It wasn’t because they weren’t prepared.”

Aside from the poor communication, there was also general opposition to the test from students, as the Venice community has long valued a counter-culture movement and social activism. Those ideals are prevalent in the student body, said Oryla Wiedoeft, who became principal last school year.

“Venice is a unique place, so there is a lot of opposition towards more mandated things. That’s what makes Venice the community that it is, which is great,” Wiedoeft said.

In certain states and communities around the country, there has been growing opposition to standardized testing and the new Common Core standards, with an “opt-out” movement encouraging students not to take standardized tests. Some critics of the new standards and the tests say they put too much pressure on students, and they should not be used to judge teachers. One reason so many students choose to opt out is because the tests don’t figure in their grade-point averages or college entrance applications.

In California and LA Unified, opt-out rates have been minimal compared to other states, with the exception of a few districts. But in Venice, opting out took hold, Wiedoeft said, and one reason was that the tests came around the same time as Advanced Placement exams.

“The placement of the testing was done before and during AP’s, and there was no strong leadership to unify everybody toward a common goal,” she said.

Staff at Venice High were able to persuade the new junior class to participate by pushing a number of ideas, Wiedoeft said. One was letting students know that the California State University system and the California Community Colleges System use the tests to determine English and math readiness when deciding if an incoming freshman needs to be placed in remedial courses. Students were also told that the test results reflect how their school is viewed, and hence, how they might be viewed.

“We did have two parents that were extremely vocal about opting out, and then you have the rest of the parents who understand that in general parents shop for schools, and one of the things they look at as a big factor are test scores, so the vast majority of the parents understood the importance for the school, and also for the kids,” Wiedoeft said. “If you graduate valedictorian from a school that’s really high-performing, it holds a lot more water than a school where the 12th-graders are performing at a fifth-grade level.”

After staff got the word out, “everyone was just all in and tried their best,” Wiedoeft said, and the school went from a score in 2015 well below the district average to strong scores well above the average. The school does have some demographics that are not as challenging as the district’s — it has a 64 percent poverty rate compared to 77 percent for the district, and 9 percent English learners compared to 27 percent for the district as a whole.

The school’s 2016 scores topped both the district and state averages. The scores compared to a 39 percent proficiency rate for the district overall on the ELA test and a 28 percent proficiency rate on the math test. Venice scores are also better than the state average, which saw 49 percent of students score proficient in English and 37 percent score proficient in math.

Isabel Anderson with her third-grade students at Vista Del Valle Dual Language Academy.

The majority of  Vista Del Valle Dual Language Academy students in San Fernando don’t have just one teacher, they have two. And they don’t have just one classroom, they have two, where they spend half their day learning in English and the other half learning in Spanish. It’s all part of the school’s dual language immersion program, one of 75 in LA Unified and part of a growing trend.

Only two years ago, the district had 57 dual language programs. Twelve were added this year, along with an additional $6 million in budget funds, and the district plans to continue adding more.

The growth of dual language programs — where students are taught 50 percent of the time in English and 50 percent in a second language in a classroom where roughly half the students are fluent English speakers and half are English learners — is part of shifting attitudes in California and LA Unified about bilingual public education and English-only instruction.

In 1998, California voters approved Proposition 227, which put substantial restrictions on bilingual education and mandated English-only instruction. But on Tuesday, voters have an opportunity to reverse course with Proposition 58 and lift those restrictions while making it easier for parents to choose a language course for their children and giving schools more opportunity to offer guidance and recommendations.

“It is a different time and a different way of looking at the world. We are 18 years later (from Prop. 227) and we are realizing that the skills and jobs that our students are going into are going to require those kinds of skills that multilingualism brings on, so that is where I see it going,” said Hilda Maldonado, executive director of LA Unified’s Multilingual and Multicultural Education Department.

Enrollment in district schools declined last school year for the 12th consecutive year, and district officials have estimated that every 3 percent drop costs it roughly $100 million in funding. As a result of the enrollment drop and other factors, the district is facing huge budget deficits in the coming years and its leaders are scrambling to find ways to right the financial ship. Along with other popular programs like magnets, both Superintendent Michelle King and board President Steve Zimmer have pointed to dual language immersion programs as a way to attract more students to the district or keep them from leaving.

At Vista Del, that theory has proven true. While 85 percent of the dual language students come from the neighborhood, the other 15 percent are open enrollment students whose parents send their children there specifically for the dual language program. Some of its students even come from outside the district in places like Burbank, Glendale and Santa Clarita. Aside from helping to keep students in the district, Vista Del Principal Mary Mendoza said it also helps keep highly involved parents as well.

“The type of parent you get that shops for what they want is the type of parent who is going to be very informed and very involved and asking the right kind of questions and will be keeping us on our toes,” Mendoza said.

The district already has plans to expand bilingual education, with or without Prop. 58, and currently offers programs for Spanish, Korean, Armenian and Mandarin. The school board has passed a number of resolutions aimed at expanding dual language programs, including the “Commitment to Prepare Students for a Multilingual Global Economy” resolution in 2013. Some recent studies have shown the benefits of dual language immersion and bilingual programs, including a 2014 Stanford study which found them to be more effective long-term for English learners.

Prop. 227 allows for bilingual education, but parents must sign a waiver form and school administrators are not allowed to offer recommendations on language programs to parents. There are multiple approaches to bilingual education in California, but the most common are dual language immersion, referred to as a 50:50 model, and also the 90:10 model. In dual language, students spend 50 percent of their time being taught in English and 50 percent in the non-English target language.

Under the 90:10 approach, the amount of the target language decreases yearly, after typically starting off at 90 percent of the time in non-English, and English increases until there is a 50:50 balance of the languages. Students must be started at an early age to qualify for non-English programs, and they usually do not accept English-only speakers after first grade and English learners after second grade.

Mendoza said when Prop. 227 passed it slowed down the growth of non-English instruction for a time, but that it had other negative impacts on English learners.

“When 227 passed, I started to see a societal change, because you have children unable to communicate with their parents. And parents unable to parent effectively because that communication is not effective, because the kids say, ‘Yeah, yeah, I don’t understand what you are saying,'” she said. “I think bilingualism helps strengthen family ties and improve job prospects.”

Coramia Ellana Garcia Crisanto, a fifth-grader at Vista Del, has parents who speak English but a grandmother and great-grandmother who only speak Spanish.

“I like it because you won’t forget your culture and your language or where you came from,” she said when asked what she likes best about her school.

At Vista Del, roughly half the dual language students come to the school fluent in English and half come as English learners fluent in Spanish. For the dual language model to work at a school in LA Unified, the 50/50 split in languages must be attainable based on the surrounding community, and the ratio should never go below 33 percent for either language group, according to state guidelines. Each grade level at Vista Del typically has three classes, and two out of three are dual language programs. The school opened in 2010 and will be graduating its first cohort class when its fifth-graders finish the spring semester.

“What I have learned specific to dual language is when the two teachers team up, they have to click. It is like neighbors, you have to communicate regularly,” Mendoza said. “I’m not saying you have to have the same outlook on life, but you have to be able to disagree and state your reasons why and do it in a professional manner and they have to respect each other. There have been some pairings that didn’t work and you have to just tweak it along the way until you find the right match.”

At some other programs in LA Unified and for Vista Del’s fifth-grade class, one teacher spends part of the time speaking in English and the other in the second language being taught.

“With me, growing up they didn’t want us to speak Spanish and now I feel like speaking Spanish is cool,” said Vista Del fifth-grade teacher Deborah Carillo. “And the kids think it is cool, and they see it on TV now and they think it is cool to speak our language. Where when I was growing up it wasn’t cool, it was frowned upon. I wish there was a program like this growing up.”

During the last decade, multiple research studies have demonstrated the significant cognitive benefits of students learning a second language, and also that bilingual students tend to outperform their peers on standardized tests. At Vista Del, the dual language students did better that the English-only students on a recent Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) test.

“I’ve noticed the dual language students progress at a more rapid rate,” Carillo said. “They are able to think cognitively and they are more analytical. And I think that’s great because you read all these research studies but as a teacher you see the results. It is already rewarding being a teacher, but even more so when you are able to provide the language and have the knowledge of the language to provide for the students. It is a great feeling.”

Maldonado said the dual language programs have been growing by about 10 percent each year the last few years, and interest from schools has been also growing.

“Every year at this time of the year we do informational meetings with principals interested in starting those programs or who have heard from their communities that they are interested in starting those programs,” Maldonado said. “They come to our planning meetings and we take them through a planning process in regards to staffing and planning, and this year we had 21 principals come to the meeting, and that is the most we have had.”

Supporters of the California Charter Schools Association’s lawsuit against the city of Huntington Park gather outside City Hall on Friday. (Photo courtesy CCSA)

*UPDATED

Parents and supporters of charter school students on Friday delivered a lawsuit to the Huntington Park City Council and Mayor Graciela Ortiz in response to the council’s recent enactment of a one-year ban on new charter schools in the city’s limits.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday by the California Charter Schools Association in Los Angeles County Superior Court and calls the council’s moratorium “unlawful,” “politically motivated” and “discriminatory.”

“It’s pretty clear to us that the city of Huntington Park had no legal basis for passing this moratorium. But more importantly, parents are really frustrated that the city is preventing them from having better schools and more options,” CCSA’s Advocacy Communications Director Jason Mandell said.

Roughly 60 parents and supporters were present at the event, Mandell said. Huntington Park City Hall is closed on Fridays, so the lawsuit and a signed statement from some parents were slipped into the building’s mailbox, Mandell said.

In September, the City Council voted 4-1 to place a 45-day moratorium on new charters in the city, and then in October voted to extend the moratorium to a full year. The votes came in response to a September report from City Manager Edgar Cisneros, which said charter schools “impact the public’s health, safety, and welfare by creating impacts on parking, vehicle circulation, and noise on-site and within the surrounding vicinity. Certain locations within the City have already experienced adverse impacts due to charter schools.”

The report also recommended the council move to amend the city’s municipal code to:

• Establish a distance requirement to other schools and sensitive receptors.
• Establish a new off-street parking calculation for the amount of required parking.
• Limit the zoning districts in which charter schools are conditionally permitted.

The report also said, “The City has received numerous inquiries and requests for the establishment and operation of charter schools within the City that may be incompatible with current land uses and the General Plan,” and that the city’s municipal code “does not have development standards specifically for charter schools.”

“I’m very disappointed. I am totally opposed to that moratorium because I feel that we are not being given choices. We have more shops than schools and I feel that they shouldn’t be limiting our choice when it comes to education,” said Rosalinda Mercado, a parent of two charter students in Huntington Park. “We have an extensive boulevard of shops, nothing but shops. And if they are really concerned about traffic, I am just very upset, it doesn’t make sense.”

Supporters of the lawsuit at Huntington Park City Hall. (Photo courtesy CCSA)

The CCSA lawsuit made a number of legal arguments, chief among them that the council has no legal right to limit or control the growth of charter schools.

“The city’s politically motivated and discriminatory prohibition of public charter schools, but no other educational institutions, for a full educational year conflicts with California’s policy of expanded educational choices. The moratorium therefore is void and unenforceable as a matter of law,” the CCSA lawsuit states.

Charters are publicly financed but independently operated schools. Huntington Park currently has 10 independent charters operating within its boundaries, according to Mandell. The schools are authorized and supervised by local school boards, county school boards or the state board. LA Unified, which includes Huntington Park, has more charter schools and students within its boundaries than any other district in the country. There are also 16 LA Unified traditional schools located on 14 campuses.

The lawsuit also says the city violated California’s Environmental Quality Act because it conducted no environmental review before enacting the moratorium.

Because most charter schools do not employ union labor, the LA teachers union, UTLA, has been publicly opposed to their growth. In identifying the alleged political motivation cited in the lawsuit, Mandell pointed out that UTLA contributed to the 2015 reelection campaign of Huntington Park Councilman Jhonny Pineda, and that Mayor Ortiz is a member of UTLA through her other job as a school counselor at Linda Esperanza Marquez High School in Huntington Park. Both Pineda and Ortiz supported the moratorium.

“It’s hard to ignore the fact that UTLA has contributed to at least one of the city council members. It’s hard to ignore that connection,” Mandell said.

According to Mandell, the charter schools in Huntington Park outperform the traditional schools, and high school charter students in the city last year had a completion rate of 98 percent on the A through G standards, compared to 49 percent for district schools. A-G classes are a set of courses that LA Unified students must pass in order to graduate.

Members of the Huntington Park City Council did not respond to a request for comment.

* Updated to include the number of traditional schools in Huntington Park.

Pasadena City College students (Photo: PCC website)

A biology class that solves a murder mystery. Online maps of how to finish a degree. And a dogged determination to get underserved students across the graduation line.

These are some of the ways Pasadena City College is reaching record graduation rates and closing the achievement gap.

And now it is up for a prestigious prize.

After having a graduation/transfer rate high above the national average along with leading the way in degrees for minorities and low-income students, PCC was recently named one of 10 finalists for the 2017 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence. The winner, which will be chosen in March, will receive a $1 million prize.

This the first time the school has been nominated for the award, which has been given out every two years since 2011. PCC’s effort to get nominated dates back to 2013 when Cynthia Olivo, the college’s vice president of Student Services, met with representatives from the Aspen Institute to find out why the school had not been nominated before.

“I had a meeting set up with them so I could ask about their metrics and why we were not making it. And so I learned a lot about their metrics. They are pretty tough,” Olivo said.

The award recognizes schools with a track record of making improvements in learning, graduation, workforce outcomes and equitable outcomes for all students, focusing on minorities and those from low-income backgrounds.

PCC was one of two California colleges to be named a finalist. The other was Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga. Santa Barbara City College is the lone California college to win the award after taking the honor in 2013.

The college’s graduation/transfer last school year was 49 percent, above the national average of 39 percent. The school is also the top community college in the state in awarding associate degrees to minorities. It ranks No. 1 in the state and No. 13 in the nation in awarding associate degrees, and it has the second-highest transfer rate to a four-year university in the California Community College system.

Olivo said much of groundwork on the school’s achievements date to 2011-12 when it began work on a new educational master plan, with a top goal being to increase equity for its historically underserved students.

“We hired a consulting firm to come in and conduct focus groups with our faculty, staff, students, administration, board members, and also community-focused groups,” she said. “They went out to the seven cities we serve in our district and took notes on what does the community want from us, what do students, faculty and administrators want from us and basically compiled a strategic plan outlining what we wanted to do over the next 10 years.”

Eighty percent of PCC’s 34,000 students come from poverty, 76 percent are students of color and 43 percent are the first in their families to go to college. The size of PCC’s student body makes it the ninth-largest community college in the state and third-largest in Los Angeles County, according to collegestats.org.

PCC’s district includes the city of Pasadena, which has a population of 137,000, and the surrounding communities of Arcadia, La Cañada Flintridge, Pasadena, Rosemead, San Marino, Sierra Madre, South Pasadena, Temple City and a portion of El Monte. But Olivo also said the majority of its students come from outside its district, and many come from LA Unified.

“It’s a phenomenon we don’t completely understand. Sixty-four percent of our 5,500 incoming freshmen come from outside our district, with the majority from Los Angeles, in places like Eagle Rock, Highland Park, downtown LA and Boyle Heights,” Olivo said.

Aside from the high graduation/transfer rate and the success of PCC’s diverse student population, the Aspen prize also highlighted a program that fast-tracks graduation by providing priority registration to students who are only a few courses short of completing their degree.

“Pasadena City College has made incredible strides in closing the achievement gap for minority students, especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Not only are PCC’s STEM programs dominated by Latino students, but women and first-generation students are also highly represented,” Joshua Wyner, executive director of the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program, said in a statement. “This reflects the college’s strong demonstrated commitment to making sure all students succeed both while in college and in promising careers after they graduate.”

Olivo also credited a few other programs with increasing student engagement at PCC. They include a biology class where students focus through the course of the semester on solving a murder mystery, a first-year experience program that serves 2,300 students per year and an online counseling program that advises students electronically and provides them a map on how to finish their degree.

“Students love (the biology class), and our data tells us the African-American and Latino students, they have really excelled. And that bio course, we have over 1,000 students who take it every fall. So it was a huge innovation at scale,” Olivo said.

Since implementing the educational master plan, Olivo said PCC has learned “that we need to work in a much more collaborative manner so that we can bring a lot of our successful services to scale for our 30,000 students. So that’s been what we’ve learned and that’s where we are at now. We are in the middle in innovating a lot of programs so that they will be available to all of our students.”

The new charter school approved by the board is Gabriella Charter School 2, which plans to serve up to 468 students in grades TK-6 in Boyle Heights or Lincoln Heights. The first Gabriella Charter School opened in 2005 in Echo Park.

The three charters that received approval of their renewal petitions are APEX Academy, which serves up to 450 students in grades 7-12 at the Helen Bernstein Complex campus, Math and Science College Preparatory, which serves up to 532 students in grades 9-12 at 3200 W. Adams Blvd. in Los Angeles and Para Los Niños Charter, which serves up to 410 students in grades K-5 at 1617 E. 7th St in Los Angeles.

The board also approved a material revision of the charter for Crown Preparatory Academy to add a STEM focus.

The vote for approvals were all unanimous and made on the consent agenda for the special meeting dedicated solely to charter schools that have received recommendations of approval from district staff. At another special session planned for 5 p.m. today, the board will consider charter petitions from those that have received a recommendation of denial.

A record number of charter schools have been recommended for denial at that meeting.

U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. takes questions from reporters Wednesday at USC.

U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. was joined by LA Unified Superintendent Michelle King and a number of education leaders at the USC Rossier School of Education Wednesday to announce the release of his department’s new teacher preparation regulations.

The regulations call for more detailed information to be gathered on how new teachers are performing, aim to provide better tracking of retention rates, offers more flexibility to states in how they measure the performance of preparation programs and require states to report annual ratings on their programs.

“The regulations really try to establish a better feedback between our K-12 schools and our teacher preparation programs, so that teacher preparation programs are getting good information about how their graduates are doing,” Sec. King said to a group of reporters. “What kinds of schools are they going into? Are they staying in those schools? Are they being retained in the teaching profession? What kind of impact are they having on their students that they teach?”

In his opening remarks at USC, Sec. King referred to the information gathered in the old regulations as “surface data,” and Superintendent King offered praise for the new, more detailed data the regulations call for.

“The use of data and really focusing on outcomes I really think is critical. And so whenever we can put that in place I think it helps drive the whole system forward, which is important,” Superintendent King told LA School Report when asked how the new regulations would impact her district. “And we certainly want teachers that are prepared, that are making an impact and a difference for kids. And so we can look at that and go back and have our partnerships with the different universities and say, ‘Look, this is what’s working.'”

The new regulations also:

• Will punish low-performing programs by cutting off federal TEACH grants.
• Require feedback from graduates and their employers on the effectiveness of their program.
• Give guidelines for measuring the student learning outcomes of those under novice teachers, including academic performance.

The new regulations were criticized by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

“It is, quite simply, ludicrous to propose evaluating teacher preparation programs based on the performance of the students taught by a program’s graduates,” Weingarten said in a statement.

The new regulations have been in the works for at least five years and were begun under Sec. King’s predecessor, Arne Duncan, who stepped down in 2015. Earlier this month, in an open letter to college presidents and education school deans, Duncan said, “The system we have for training teachers lacks rigor, is out of step with the times, and is given to extreme grade inflation that leaves teachers unprepared and their future students at risk.”

Sec. King also participated in a roundtable discussion at Rossier, where he was joined by Under Secretary Ted Mitchell, Superintendent King, Rossier School of Education Dean Karen Symms Gallagher and a number of education leaders. Also at the table were some educators and administrators at LA Unified schools, including Norma Spencer, principal of the Alexander Science Center, and Kristen McGregor, principal of Belmont High School.

One issue that was raised several times was the problem of teacher retention and the teacher shortage plaguing the nation. According to a new study from the Learning Policy Institute, enrollment in teacher-preparation programs dropped from 691,000 in 2009 to 451,000 in 2014. And according to a recent commentary on LA School Report by Jane Mayer and Jesse Soza, approximately 11,000 LA teachers are predicted to leave the profession in the next five years.

“What I have learned is that teachers are feeling isolated and when they don’t have other teachers or a support team there, they are more likely not to stay within the profession,” Superintendent King said during the discussion.

Kearstie Hernandez, a chemistry teacher at Huntington Park High School and a 2014 Rossier graduate, listed during the roundtable discussion all the different roles she has taken on at her school, including head of the girls’ basketball program, assistant athletic director, head of the science fair and several others.

“I sleep five hours a day. I commute an hour in the morning and an hour and a half in the evening back home,” she said.

Superintendent King was impressed with the list — and concerned.

“I was listening to all that stuff. That’s a lot for a new person. I’m thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, she is going to hit the wall and burn out,'” King told LA School Report. “So we really have to be very intentional about that and put the supports around them and really hook them up with other people. Because if you don’t, three years out, they just say, ‘It’s too much.'”

During his closing remarks at the end of the panel discussion, Sec. King had praise for Superintendent King and LA Unified.

“Certainly, Michelle, I really admire the things you are doing in LA and your commitment that LAUSD has to continue to get better and close gaps and create better opportunity. And your willingness to have the hard conversations to make that happen, I appreciate,” he said.

Carol Alexander, director of LA Unified’s A-G Intervention and Support

As part of College Awareness Month in October, LA Unified officials on Tuesday presented a new initiative designed to inspire and prepare the district’s students for college, starting at the pre-K and kindergarten level and continuing every year through 12th grade.

“The Division of Instruction wanted to begin a dialogue of specific activities by grade level, highlighting an activity by grade level that every child by grade level would have,” Carol Alexander, director of LA Unified’s A-G Intervention and Support, told the school board’s Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee.

The plan is one of several ways the district is looking to increase college awareness this month. Others include a new instructional video on the A through G graduation standards, which will be shown to students, and a personalized brochure that can be given to high school students on A-G in their native language. The district is also promoting upcoming college fairs, as well as partnering with Cash for College on upcoming workshops for parents and students on how to apply for financial aid.

The pre-K through 12th-grade plan isn’t required for schools but is a list of “suggested activities” that have been sent out to each school, Alexander said, and leaders at each site will decide how best to implement them. The activities include kindergarten students investigating and learning about different careers, researching a college or university in 5th grade, learning about the A-G course requirements and how to calculate their GPA in 8th grade and writing college essays in 10th grade.

Members of the school board on the committee reacted positively to the overall plan and added some suggestions of their own on how to get the district’s kids interested in and ready for college.

“I think every student should take a college-level class. Every high school student has a mandate to graduate,” said board member Richard Vladovic, who chairs the committee. “Back in 1963 — even if it has to be over television — I took from community college, Harbor College, an astronomy class over TV. And earned a grade. I took it. So we can do it, there are vehicles to do it.”

Alexander also played a six-minute video produced by the district about the A-G graduation requirements that will be shown to students. The standards, which were required for graduation for the first time last school year, call on students to take and pass a series of courses that would make them eligible for admission to California’s public universities if they earn all C grades or better, although D’s are allowed for graduation. The video featured a series of graphics and a voiceover highlighting the various classes students need to pass to qualify for graduation.

Board President Steve Zimmer offered what he called a “gentle critique” when he said the video could perhaps use a little more excitement.

“As I was watching the video, I was reminded a little bit and it felt a little bit like I was strapped into my airplane seat and I was watching the safety video of like — very important information, but I’m worried that people kind of tune it out,” Zimmer said.

Zimmer then recounted a time he flew on Virgin America and was surprised the company had produced a video that was so entertaining “you can’t help but watch it.”

College and Career Awareness month comes as the district enters the second year of its new A-G standards, and with the recent news that LA Unified broke its graduation record last school year. It also comes on the heels of the August announcement of the Los Angeles College Promise, in which every district graduate starting in 2017 will be offered a free year of tuition at any Los Angeles Community College District campus.

*UPDATED

While LA Unified is firmly committed to online credit recovery classes as a means to the district’s newly stated top goal — 100 percent graduation — Los Angeles charter school operators use these classes much more sparingly, as their graduation rates tend to be far ahead of the district’s.

At three of the city’s largest charter management organizations, no more than 5 percent of students have taken an online credit recovery course. LA Unified has yet to report how many of their 2016 graduates used credit recovery to gain a diploma. A $15-million credit recovery program took LA Unified’s projected graduation rate from 49 percent last fall to an estimated 75 percent this summer, a record. The official graduation rate will be reported later this fall.

The three CMO’s also have more stringent policies for testing out of a course. LA Unified allows students to test out of much of a course if they can score 60 percent on a pre-test. The charters set that bar higher or don’t allow testing out.

“I strongly support the use of online learning, not just for credit recovery but for enrichment and for broadening the curriculum. That said, across all of our schools, only 1.3 percent of the course credits are provided through online learning,” said Caprice Young, who is CEO of Magnolia Public Schools and also a former LA Unified school board president.

Last school year, as part of a $15 million program, LA Unified for the first time implemented a major push for online credit recovery courses across the district. The move was in response to a looming graduation crisis, as the school board raised the bar for graduation requirements and installed a series of courses called “A through G.” Students would need to take and pass the A-G courses before the end of their senior year, and if they earned all C grades or above would be eligible for admittance into California’s public universities, although the district allows D’s for graduation.

The district was unprepared for the raised bar, so part way through the fall of 2015 the credit recovery program kicked in. This year the courses were offered as soon as school started.

The dramatic increase in the graduation rate has turned some heads in the academic world, with some experts questioning the validity and rigor of online credit recovery courses. In that program, students without enough credits to graduate retake classes during free periods, after school, on Saturdays and during the winter break. The courses are online and have either a teacher running the class along with a computer program, known as blended learning, or an all-online course known as virtual learning. If students prove proficiency with the material they receive a C grade at LA Unified. A’s and B’s aren’t an option.

But LA Unified is not alone in using online credit recovery programs despite their controversial nature. Most large districts across the country also use them, as do at least three of the largest CMOs authorized by LA Unified, although each one appears to use them on a far more limited basis. And each CMO — PUC Schools, Alliance College-Ready Public Schools and Magnolia Public Schools — had a different set of guidelines regarding if students could pre-test out of some course material.

PUC SCHOOLS

“We most definitely use it very sparingly. It is not our goal to use it in place of intervention and support,” said Leslie Chang, superintendent of leadership and instruction for PUC Schools. PUC operates 16 schools, of which six are high schools.

Chang said PUC used Apex Learning for its online programs, which is one of two companies that LA Unified also uses. Chang estimated that 4 or 5 percent of PUC graduates last year had taken at least one online course and said it was most commonly used when a student transferred into a PUC school already behind in credits.

“If the child is behind and we determine that based on their current schedule they may need to take an additional course, then we will offer that option to them. We want to make sure it is not the go-to for everything that is required for graduation for our schools. Typically, a select few number of students will use the blended learning approach,” Chang said.

PUC also has different guidelines on pre-testing. While LA Unified allows students to skip chapters or units if they pass at least 60 percent of a pre-test, PUC sets the pre-test bar at 70 percent.

“I think there is a place for online learning in the academic experience of every student in today’s day and age. I do not think it can replace the power and effectiveness of a teacher, and if a student is behind in credits or content, then blended learning can have a very powerful effect,” Chang said. “But they really do have to be in tandem with teacher support and done very strategically and intentionally.”

MAGNOLIA

Young said she thought that LA Unified’s approach to online credit recovery will become more balanced in time. Magnolia operates eight independent charter schools within LA Unified, and four of them are schools for grades 6-12.

“I think LAUSD is going in the right direction, and the next step is to get more nuanced in how they use it. This is pretty common when school districts implement online learning. The first year it may be overused or underused or inappropriately used, but as they get more nuanced about how to match the right kids with the right courses and the right content it makes sense,” Young said.

Magnolia has an 80 percent pre-test bar and they use Fuel Education for their programs. Young estimated that 5 percent of Magnolia’s graduates last year took an online credit recovery course.

“And that’s because kids don’t always start with us in 6th grade, they may come to us in their junior year and they are already behind and we have to help them catch up, and sometimes that requires them to essentially take more than six courses in the semester. Adding more online can catch them up,” Young said.

Young also defended the idea of pre-testing.

“One of the things that the online learning is for is at the beginning of each unit the student can demonstrate their knowledge, and then if they can demonstrate their knowledge that they know it, there is no sense in boring the student and making them retake it,” Young said.

ALLIANCE

Perhaps the biggest reason the large CMOs use online credit recovery on a more limited basis is because they tend to be far ahead of the district in graduation rates. Magnolia’s graduation rate in 2015 was 96.4 percent. Alliance’s grad rate in 2014-15 was 95 percent, and PUC says they exceed 90 percent every year. With fewer students in danger of not graduating, fewer are obviously in need of credit recovery.

“Graduation is what we do. It’s part of our DNA. It’s what we do. And it could be what LAUSD does too and hopefully they will,” Young said.

Robert Pambello, an area superintendent for Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, said Alliance’s use is “very limited. Every student has a graduation plan, and so we track students on a regular basis for being on track for graduation, and there are very few kids that actually need the credit recovery.” Alliance is LA Unified’s largest CMO and operates 28 schools. Eighteen of them are high schools.

Pambello said less than 3 percent of Alliance’s graduates last year took an online course and that Alliance does not allow pre-testing.

“We do not have that feature. The student takes the whole course because they did not pass the course,” he said. “We don’t do pre-testing at all, they are assigned the course and they work through the course at their own pace.”

GREEN DOT

Not every large CMO is as centrally organized with its online curriculum as PUC, Alliance and Magnolia. Green Dot Public Schools, which manages nine high schools in Los Angeles and Inglewood, has online credit recovery programs but does not centrally track how many students are taking them. The courses are viewed no differently than its regular curriculum, according to Sean Thibault, communications director for Green Dot.

“It’s not like there is an online department or a whole team working on online programs, this is just part of what the whole curriculum team does,” he said. “Every one of the Green Dot schools in high school are offering A-G curriculum as the baseline, there is no friendlier curriculum they could do. So all the schools are doing assessments and doing what they can with proficiency and to catch some students up in the school year.”

As far as what the guidelines are, Thibault said “as a general rule, where students need that kind of option (with credit recovery) we have made it available. I don’t think that there is a model that is enforced or universal for pre-testing, but it is more school-by-school, or depending it could be course-by-course or instructor-by-instructor or student-by-student. And that’s Green Dot’s approach, to identify the student’s needs and develop the instruction they need to be successful.”

Pacific Palisades Charter High School is not a CMO but a standalone independent charter school. While it also offers credit recovery, like Green Dot it does not centrally track how many students are taking the courses. The school has been offering online credit recovery courses for five years during summer school, but this year it also began offering them throughout the school year as well. Like LA Unified and the large CMOs, the online courses are overseen by a licensed teacher.

“We do not know (how many take online credit recovery). We don’t track it in that way, because when the student passes the course, because it has a highly qualified teacher running it, it doesn’t have a separate designation,” said Jeff Hartman, director of academic planning and guidance.

Palisades does not allow for any pre-testing out of chapters or units. Randy Tenan-Snow, an English teacher at Palisades who helps oversee online credit recovery, predicted the school will be expanding its program in the coming years.

“I believe that as we gather more data and we start enrolling more students, I see that online and blended programs will be the wave of the future for most students that are trying to do credit recovery,” she said. “It is very difficult to add a class when you are already taking six classes, so to take a class online it definitely helps our community and our students. We will probably expand as we move forward.”

*UPDATED to reflect PUC operates six high schools, not four. 

UTLA rally at James Monroe High School in November 2014.

Members of the LA teachers union, UTLA, will be out in the streets Thursday as part of a “Day of Action” that is planned in conjunction with 200 other cities. Union members will be visiting homes in the areas near LA Unified schools for planned “neighborhood walks” where they will ask residents what they want to see in their schools and express support for Propositions 55 and 58, two measures on the November ballot.

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl mentioned the day of action as part of his state of the union speech in July and said the event will be in coordination with the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, a national group of parent, youth and community organizations and labor groups whose stated goal is “fighting for educational justice and equity in access to school resources and opportunities.” UTLA participated in several Alliance national events last school year, including “walk-ins” in February and May.

According to UTLA’s newspaper, as of Sept. 16, at least 140 schools have signed up to participate in the day of action. The event will begin at 3:30 p.m. after school is out, with parents, students, teachers and community supporters meeting outside schools for a brief training session on the “nuts and bolts of going door-to-door,” according to a UTLA flyer on the event. From 4 to 5 participants will walk in pairs and visit homes in the area then meet back at the schools from 5 to 5:30 for a debrief.

Prop. 55 is an extension of taxes on high-income earners. Prop. 58 would allow public schools to decide how to teach English language learners, removing restrictions from a referendum passed 18 years ago that required students be taught almost exclusively in English.

“At stake is whether California’s highest income earners will continue to pay a particular stream of taxes to support the state’s schools and social programs, or whether they will be given a tax break amidst growing poverty and inequality,” Caputo-Pearl said about Prop. 55 during his state of the union speech. “At stake is over $700 million annually for Los Angeles. We will be involved in massive precinct-walking and phone-banking as we build to the November election.” Caputo-Pearl did not return a message seeking comment.

KIPP LA Prep School Leader Carlos Lanuza and some of his students. (Courtesy: KIPP)

KIPP Los Angeles College Preparatory School in Boyle Heights has been named a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education. The designation was given Wednesday to 279 public schools across the country and is considered the highest honor the federal government can bestow on a school.

KIPP LA Prep is an independent public charter middle school that serves a primarily Latino student body and was one of only two schools from LA Unified to receive the honor, along with Wonderland Elementary, a traditional district school. Last year KIPP Raíces, an elementary school, was the only LA Unified school, charter or traditional, to receive the honor and was the first school from the KIPP LA Schools organization to receive the Blue Ribbon.

Ninety-four percent of KIPP LA Prep’s students qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, but the Blue Ribbon award names it an “exemplary high-performing school,” meaning it is recognized as a top school in the nation, not just a top school for low-income students.

“That’s the thing that we constantly tell our students, which is that we are not just competing against the neighborhood schools, we are competing with the rest of the world, with the rest of the population, and that has always been our focus,” School Leader Carlos Lanuza said Thursday.

KIPP LA Prep is one of 33 schools in California to receive a National Blue Ribbon Award and one of 29 public schools in California.

“We got nominated last year and then we did all the work that we needed to do on the application and the calls and the scores, and then this year we got the call that, ‘Hey, you got the Blue Ribbon award,'” Lanuza said. “I want to say it was vindication for our community. This is such a good feeling for Boyle Heights, that they deserve a quality school. And I think that our community knows that we are a quality school, but this award puts the stamp on it.”

The school began in 2003 in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood and moved locations several times before signing a 25-year lease eight years ago at its current location, which used to be a tortilla factory. Lanuza, who also started working at the school eight years ago and has been school leader for five, said a permanent facility allowed the school to expand its approach.

“We created this beautiful school and then our whole focus changed from just academics, where it was academics, academics, academics, to really a whole-child approach and making sure students are not just getting the high academic opportunities, but music, art, dance, electives and enrichment programs,” he said.

Steven Almazan is a graduate student at UC Berkeley and taught special education for several years at KIPP Sol Academy in East LA. Almazan grew up near KIPP LA Prep’s current location and reminisced in a recent blog post about smelling the tortillas from the factory as he walked past it on the way to his school. He didn’t realize the factory had become a school until he saw KIPP LA Prep featured in the 2010 documentary “Waiting for Superman” when he was in college. Seeing the work that was being done at KIPP, he said, “propelled him to want to work for KIPP.”

“It is really hard to find schools that can provide an excellent education in Boyle Heights. Typically we hear if you want a good education you should go outside of the neighborhood,” Almazan told LA School Report. “The fact that one of the best schools in the nation now is in Boyle Heights is just a huge testament to the work that has been done at KIPP.”

Almazan added, “KIPP LA Prep, I feel out of all the KIPP schools in LA, they have a lot of teachers who have been there since the beginning and a lot of teachers who essentially mastered their content.”

Lanuza said even when the school started adding more electives, the school’s API scores continued to rise, and the school has scored extremely well on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) tests, which began last year. On the 2016 tests, 72 percent of KIPP LA Prep’s students met or exceeded the standard of the English language arts test, and 74 percent met or exceeded the math standard. On the same test, 39 percent of LA Unified’s students at traditional schools met or exceeded the English standard and 28 percent met or exceeded the math standard.

Catching students up their first year and then keeping the bar at a high level is an important cornerstone of why his students are achieving so much, Lanuza said.

“We usually get students who are reading two or three grade levels behind, so we are making sure that we are doing the interventions, doing the tutoring and doing the re-teaching to get kids up to grade level,” Lanuza said. “And then once they get up to 6th grade to actually access the material, just exploding from there. We make sure we have a high level of mathematics. We actually teach geometry and Algebra II, which is not common for middle schools.”

Lanuza also said that while his students seem pleased that the school has received the award, they may not be grasping how big a deal it is.

“They are happy and they are proud and there is part of me that thinks they don’t know the magnitude of this,” he said. “We tell them every day that they are proving what’s possible, that Latino children in Boyle Heights can achieve. And they take our word for it, but I don’t think they have gotten down to the magnitude of what this award really means.”

Remedial courses do not count toward college degrees because they are designed to catch students up to the minimum standards of the college and cover material that students should have learned in high school. The report found that students who must take these remedial classes are less likely to graduate.

“What our takeaways were from this report, No. 1, students aren’t prepared for college-level work,” said Laura Jimenez, director of Standards and Accountability at the Center for American Progress, at a roundtable discussion of the report that took place today at East Los Angeles College. “We really shouldn’t need remedial education for recent high school graduates. They really should have the skills they need to enter into credit-bearing coursework.”

In California, the estimated out-of-pocket cost for students taking remedial courses was $205 million, by far the most in the nation, and the state had the 13th worst remediation rate, with 47 percent of all first-time students in the 2013-14 school year enrolled in college remediation courses.

Students needing remedial courses are not limited to only those that struggled to get through high school. Nationally, the report found that an estimated 40 percent to 60 percent of first-year college students require remediation in English, math or both.

The report also found “the problem is worse for low-income students and students of color, whose rates of remedial education enrollment are higher than for their white and higher income peers. According to a recent study, 56 percent of African-American students and 45 percent of Latino students enroll in remedial courses nationwide, compared with 35 percent of white students.”

Gerson Liahut-Sánchez, an undocumented Latino student at East Los Angeles College and a graduate of LA Unified’s Garfield High School, spoke during the panel discussion and said he was shocked when he found out he needed remedial education in college.

“Back in high school, I thought that I was on top of the world. I was taking advanced placement courses, which is the quote unquote college equivalent for a high school student to take,” he said. “And so I thought, ‘Hey, I am college ready.’ I was ready to go out there and take over whatever college or university that I end up going to. My reality changed.”

The report offered a number of suggestions on how to fix the problem, and chief among them was the implementation of higher academic standards in English and math, such as the Common Core State Standards, which California has adopted.

Jimenez suggested that California should consider adopting the A through G standards statewide, calling the idea “low-hanging fruit.” A-G is a set of courses that students need to take and pass with a C grade or better for acceptance into California’s public universities. LA Unified adopted the standards as a graduation requirement last year, although it allows D grades to count toward graduation.

“Anytime we see more alignment with clarity, I think it makes the pathway for opportunity all that more available to students,” Frances Gipson, LA Unified’s chief academic officer, told LA School Report when asked if she supported the idea. Gipson also participated in the panel discussion.

The report did not estimate if the level of students needing remedial courses has grown and focused only on the current state of the problem. It also did not deeply analyze why so many students are coming to college unprepared. While several panelists offered possible solutions, there was no clear answer as to how to address the problem nationally.

“There is no one answer. We know there are a few,” Jimenez told LA School Report. “We know that the rigor of standards within the K-12 system has a heck of a lot to do with how prepared students are. Most states adopted either Common Core or college and career ready standards. They set their own standards and they set their own cut scores for the tests that were aligned with those standards. There were states where a 30 percent was passing on an assessment, and 30 percent on a test is very clearly a fail.”

Los Angeles’ community colleges may soon be getting a better sense if LA Unified’s graduates are college ready, thanks to a new program beginning in the fall of 2017 in which any LA Unified graduate will be offered a free year of tuition at any Los Angeles Community College District school. Scott Svonkin, president of the board of trustees of the community college district, told LA School Report the program is expected to bring an estimated 7,000 additional students from LA Unified into the college district’s schools.

“Will there be a spike in remediation? Possibly. But if the students in LA Unified continue to improve, we won’t see a spike, because they will come in, they will go to an LA community college full time, they will get a free education for a year and they will get through faster with less debt,” Svonkin said.

However, any student who requires remedial courses may still have to pay for them.

“I don’t know that we have worked out that detail yet,” Svonkin said when asked if the free tuition program would cover remedial courses. “I believe it is for college-level classes, so their first year of eligibility will be when they get to the college level. But we expect if you graduate with a high school diploma from an LA Unified school and go straight to college, you should be college ready.”

Students Lily Diaz, left, Mauricio Garcia and Stephanie Cuevas at the Neighborhood Academic Initiative gala at USC in May. (Photo by Michael Owen Baker)

For the first time, there will be more students from an LA Unified high school in USC’s freshman class than from any other, the university announced Wednesday. Thanks to a long-running special program, the Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI), 19 of the university’s incoming class this year are from the Foshay Learning Center, which is near USC.

The great majority of the students in NAI are minorities and from low-income households, and the program has existed as a partnership between USC and LA Unified since the 1991-92 school year. Through the program, students from the surrounding neighborhoods near USC are given enrichment opportunities, guidance, counseling and education with the goal of helping them get accepted to college. Students who are accepted to USC get a full-ride scholarship minus loans.

Students begin the program in the 6th grade and attend all through high school. During the middle school years, the students come to USC on Saturdays to hear guest speakers, take classes and receive information about college. When high school begins in the 9th grade, the students attend English and math classes every morning at USC before going to their other classes at Foshay or two high schools in East LA. They also take summer school courses and attend on Saturdays.

Since 1997, 99 percent of students who participate in NAI have been accepted to college.

“We see them come in babies — ‘This is kind of a fun thing, I’m on a college campus and I’m just in the 6th grade. I just left the bosom of my 5th-grade teacher,’ — to graduating with a list of colleges that they have been accepted to. So NAI changes the question from am I going to college, or can I go to college, to which college am I going to,” said Kim Thomas-Barrios, executive director of USC Educational Partnerships, which oversees NAI.

Foshay has a little under 2,000 students, and about 700 of them are part of NAI. Several years ago the program also started serving students from the East LA area in the schools of El Sereno Middle School, Nightingale Middle School, Lincoln High School and Wilson High School.

What is impressive about Foshay leading the USC freshman class in acceptance is that it beat out many other private schools like Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City or The Buckley School in Sherman Oaks where many of the students come from privileged, elite backgrounds.

Few students from those schools have the background of Stephanie Cuevas, a USC freshman who attended Foshay and came through the NAI program. Cuevas lived in a one-bedroom apartment with eight relatives and slept in the living room with three siblings, her mom and stepdad. Her mom wasn’t working at the time, and her stepdad worked at a KFC restaurant. When she was in the 5th grade, some representatives from the NAI program visited her elementary school and gave a presentation. She said she was immediately interested in the program.

“I knew I had to go to college. I didn’t want to end up living the way my parents lived,” Cuevas said.

Cuevas also said she realized how far ahead she was of other students at Foshay who weren’t involved in the program when it came time to apply to college.

“My cousin at Foshay, she didn’t know the deadlines or about the SATs and what to score to get to what college. She didn’t know her A-G requirements and what she had to take and what she shouldn’t have taken,” she said. “But at NAI they said, ‘Take this course,’ and they gave us everything you have to do. They handed everything to us and said, ‘Just do it.’ They handed us the plan, and all we had to do was do it.”

NAI’s budget this year is around $1.3 million, Thomas-Barrios said, and is funded directly by USC and corporate and private donors, including NAI alumni. Representatives of the program visit the area’s elementary schools and encourage students to apply for the program. She said they look for students who aren’t yet high-achieving.

“We are of the mind and always have been that those students who are doing really, really well are going to be captured into college access pathways. The students who are doing OK, with C+ average, they could go either way if they are pushed, and they can be put into that pathway, so those are the kids we are looking for,” she said. “So we capture their imagination and the imagination of their parents and say, ‘Let’s try this thing.'”

On Saturdays, the students’ parents are encouraged to attend and take part in the Family Development Institute, which gives them information on college and tips on how to help their child’s academic growth.

“Some of our Latino families will take the entire family to their country of origin for a long period to visit family who are ill or who have passed, and so everyone goes. For a child who is a senior and taking AP calculus, a month is a long time to be away,” Thomas-Barrios said. “So (the Family Development Institute) understands that and will make alternate arrangements for the child.”

USC also announced Wednesday that the freshman class is the highest-achieving it has ever enrolled, and also one of the largest and most ethnically diverse ever. The 3,068 freshmen make up the fifth-largest freshman class in USC’s 136-year history, with 9,023, or 16.6 percent, of the 54,282 applicants offered admission. Their average, unweighted GPA is 3.75, or 4.07 if weighted. Twenty percent had earned straight As in high school. Another 7 percent earned only one B in high school. 

Twenty-four percent of the freshmen come from underrepresented ethnic groups; 1 in 8 are the first in their families to attend college. Forty-one percent are white, 20 percent are Asian or Asian American, 14 percent are international students, 13 percent are Latino, and 5 percent are African American.

“We have made a strong effort to recruit students from a range of backgrounds to USC this fall,” Provost Michael Quick said in a statement. “They are the first in their families to attend college, transfer students from community colleges and high-performing graduates from a variety of public and private high schools across the nation and the world. We are pleased to have had such an impressive pool of applicants from which to select our vibrant freshman class.”

*Dark green denotes traditional public schools. Orange denotes private schools. Orange County HS of the Arts is a public charter school and Troy HS in Fullerton is a public magnet school.

The apparent ease with which the district was able to substantially boost the number of diplomas it handed out through a $15 million credit recovery program turned heads and has some asking if the online courses are rigorous enough. Board President Steve Zimmer has questions, as did the Los Angeles Times editorial pages and some academics.

But while online credit recovery has been making headlines in Los Angeles this year, LA Unified is far from the only district using it, and one of the nation’s largest providers of online credit recovery programs has found a growing appetite for its product over the last 10 years.

Apex Learning CEO Cheryl Vedoe said the company began in 1999 by providing online advanced placement programs, but in 2005 it started providing online credit recovery programs, which have “really just taken off from there.” Before long, she said, Apex learned that when it comes to online classes, credit recovery is what districts want most.

Apex is one of two companies contracted by LA Unified to provide online credit recovery courses. The other is Edgenuity. Apex has over 1,500 contracts with school districts nationwide and is in the first year of a five-year contract with LA Unified to provide online courses. The contract for the two companies is not to exceed $5 million over the five years, and schools can choose between the two companies when selecting their courses.

Below is an edited version of LA School Report’s recent interview with Vedoe.

Q: There has been some recent criticism in Los Angeles of online credit recovery, and in particular with allowing students to pretest out of some of the curriculum. The Los Angeles Times editorial board was critical recently, and some academics have also spoken out. What is your response to the criticism?

A: It is important to take a look at the kinds of students taking credit recovery in the first place. Many of the ones in need of credit recovery, it is not the case that they didn’t learn a great deal in the course that they were in, but for what can be a variety of different reasons students haven’t passed the course. It’s not surprising that some students, when given the opportunity to accelerate through a course in order to recover the credit can do that and can do that successfully. So I think we need to recognize that. There are also some students who failed a course because they weren’t mastering any of the material.

Q: What about the fact that the NCAA does not accept credits that were received through accelerated online courses? Do you know why it does not accept them? Are you concerned if other organizations or districts began to follow the NCAA’s lead?

A: I can only surmise why that is. I can surmise that is because not all programs are created equal, and rather than having to analyze every single accelerated program to make sure that it is meeting their requirements, what they are saying is we want students to complete the entire course.

Q: What is your response to those out there asking if the courses are rigorous enough?

A: I would say when it comes to our courses, they are generally viewed as being rigorous and challenging. We develop our courses to fully meet the expectation that our students are ready for college after taking the courses… Our courses are put through a fairly rigorous review. When you look at credit recovery and students who are accelerated through courses, first of all it is not all students who are able to do that. But for the student who sat through the entire course and for some reason wasn’t successful on the final exam and now they are in a credit recovery situation, they are sometimes more highly motivated because this is what is standing between them and graduation. I think sometimes it is natural for people to question whether all students are able to do that, because these are students who weren’t successful.

Q: Are you aware if the UC system is reevaluating if it will accept online credit recovery or pretesting?

A: I’m not aware of that. The process has changed slightly over the years, but we have regularly submitted courses to the UC system. I am not aware that there have been any changes to the process. And I think it is a fairly rigorous process.

Q: What about the paranoid “Terminator 2” question: If online courses are really so effective, is this the beginning of computers and robots taking the place of teachers?

A: I don’t believe this is the beginning of computers taking over and teaching kids everything. When our courses are implemented there are teachers actively involved. What our courses do is offer an option for teachers so they can reasonably individualize instruction for every student, particularly those who have not been successful.

• Read more on credit recovery: Are the courses ‘very rigorous’?, Credit recovery starts early this year, Zimmer expresses frustration over credit recovery

Thousands of people marched through the streets of San Fernando and Pacoima on Saturday, calling on their leaders at LA Unified and Sacramento to support the charter school movement. The “Rally in the Valley” began at Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in San Fernando, which was the first charter school to be started at LA Unified and the first conversion charter school in the nation.

California Charter School Association Families, which hosted the event, estimated the crowd to be at 3,000. After the march the crowd heard speeches from a number of elected leaders, including LA Unified board member Monica Ratliff and Assemblywoman Patty Lopez, and charter leaders, including Yvonne Chan, who founded Vaughn Next Century Learning Center.

Watch the video for highlights of the event.

They don’t take special education students. They screen during enrollment for students with high academics. They are funded by billionaires out to bankrupt the unions and take over LA Unified. They are unregulated monsters run amok on our school system.

There is no lack of accusations that are frequently hurled at independent charter schools. Since the first independent charter school was started in LA Unified in 1993, charters have over time become one of the most polarizing issues on the educational landscape. Whether it be their financial impact, enrollment practices or educational philosophies, there seems to be no shortage of critics.

• Read more about charters: How charters went from a ‘novelty’ to dominate the conversation of LAUSD, 9 questions and answers about LA’s charters and Alliance College-Ready Public Schools: A replicable model or unique success?

Last week the Washington Post ran an article that was heavily critical of charters in California, and it also cited an August report from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California which found that 20 percent of all charter schools in California had enrollment policies in place that violate state and federal law.

While some of the accusations in the ACLU report are true of some charters or were true of some in the past, other accusations that are commonly thrown at charters are hard to prove one way or another or boil down to philosophical differences. In light of the recent high-profile criticism of California and LA charters, here is what several prominent charter leaders in Los Angeles had to say about the frequent accusations that are made against the charter movement.

Accusation: The ACLU report found many instances of enrollment violations regarding students’ academic performance, English proficiency and immigration status, despite the fact that charters are not allowed by law to consider these factors. 

Jacqueline Elliot, co-founder of PUC Schools: “Our movement is big. It has gotten huge, in fact, in LA and California and across the nation. And frankly, I don’t think we can expect that we are going to have perfection across the nation, and we are going to have charter schools that are doing things we don’t like and that are perhaps not legal, and it is our responsibility in the charter movement and also of the authorizers, which is how the legislation is set up, to weed out and stop those practices. But I do think that the vast majority of charter schools are run by dedicated educators who have integrity and who will abide by the law.”

Caprice Young, founder of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) and CEO of Magnolia Public Schools: “If I did a Lexus Nexus Google search of every abuse at every school district in the state of California, the list would be about 40 times that long… What I would say in response to (the ACLU report) is that charters are required to have their entire enrollment procedure approved by whoever their authorizer happens to be. And almost all of the schools identified in the ACLU report were actually implementing the enrollment procedures that had been approved by their local school districts. So the issue is not charters, in so much as if they are complying with what they put in their charter, but the issue is really more a question of oversight and if the school districts feel comfortable having some guidelines in the context of charter school lotteries.”

Cristina de Jesus, president and CEO of Green Dot Public Schools California: “I think it’s unfortunate that a few bad actors are being used to paint the entire charter sector with a broad brush. They are not representative of the great majority of charters who are actually changing the odds for kids across the country every day. I can say in general, Green Dot feels that bad actors should suffer the consequences if they are employing policies and procedures that are not on the up and up.”

Jason Mandell, spokesperson for CCSA: “We are still dealing with in some cases myths that are very much outdated or maybe were never true, and so it continues to be an issue. If a small number of schools have an issue, all charters tend to be grouped together in how they are reported on in the media. Something happens at one charter school and that charter school speaks for all charters in some cases. With district schools, people don’t necessarily group them all together in that way.”

Accusation: An early draft of what became the Great Public Schools Now plan to fund successful school models aimed to enroll half of all LA Unified students in charter schools, something critics said would threaten the solvency of the district. The plan, which originated with the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, has since changed to include other school models beyond charters, but the draft plan has led to the accusation that billionaires are out to bankrupt the district. 

Elliot: “I would say to keep in mind that plan came from one person, and that was Broad. You should not condemn a big, successful charter community because what one philanthropist published as his plan. That was him, that wasn’t me and that wasn’t my colleagues. I mean, let’s keep perspective here. Anybody can say what they want to say, but it is called the ‘Broad Plan,’ it is not called ‘the plan of all the charter leaders in Los Angeles.’ I think people need to keep that in perspective. It was not wise. It was a bad choice. It hurt us terribly.”

Young: “In the 1990s, when the Annenberg Foundation gave LAUSD half a billion dollars and the local business and civic community matched that donation two-to-one, no one was screaming, ‘Don’t let the billionaires take over our schools.’ The fact is that in order to have strong schools in Los Angeles, we need everyone involved, from small business owners to big business owners. From nonprofit leaders to churches and synagogues. All of the population of LA needs to be putting its whole strength into the schools. I’m just grateful that our business community is willing to continue to invest in public schools.”

Accusation: The early draft of the Great Public Schools Now plan had critics saying it — and charter growth in general — would threaten the financial solvency of the district. This has led to accusations that charters fight any attempt to limit or control their growth. 

Elliot: “I think it’s a tough situation for them and I get it, I understand if I was in their seat and I thought that the charter movement was going to become so huge, huge, huge that it was going to suck more seats until we are extinguished and the whole city will be charter, that’s the fear. I don’t think the whole city should be charter. I think we are just spending all this energy fighting with one another.”

Young: “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to limit the growth of any charter schools or any high-quality schools. As long as we have schools that are not successful for our kids, we need more schools, charter schools or specialized schools of one sort or another. We need more schools that do the job. And I think the financial situation of the district actually has almost nothing to do with the charter schools, and that is easily documented. And because of that, it’s an excuse and instead of focusing on fixing their financial challenges, they say oh, don’t have more charter schools.”

Accusation: The LA teachers union, UTLA, often uses the term “unregulated” when talking about charters and says there needs to be more oversight of charters because they are unregulated compared to district schools. 

Elliot: “I I think when people say charters are unregulated it means they are doing whatever they want with complete freedom and flexibility with no rules applying, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Charters come up for renewal every five years, and if there is any group of schools that feels they are being watched and are accountable it is charter schools. And not just because they come up for renewal every five years, but because we have an authorizer that keeps a close eye on us. They come in and do oversight visits every year. They continually ask for our financials and are watching everything and going over it with a fine-tooth comb much more so than what happens in the district.”

Young: “Bureaucracies oversee things in the way that they know how. And the charter school law is really all about holding schools accountable for student outcomes and for fiscal stability. And the only way that the school district knows how to hold anybody accountable is how many mountains of paper they have turned in.”

De Jesus: “I think one of the big myths out there about charters is that they are unregulated, which is simply not true. We have an annual oversight visit for every single school, whether the school is high performing or not. And we also have to go before the board every five years to see if we deserve another shot. And when do regular public schools have to go through that kind of scrutiny? Hardly ever.”

Accusation: Some charters, especially in the startup phase, lack the facilities of a traditional school and hold classes in churches and other non-traditional settings. This has led to the accusation that some charters deprive students of a well-rounded school experience by lacking athletic fields, auditoriums and other traditional amenities. 

Elliot: “I have really evolved on this over the years. I always used to say that it doesn’t matter where you teach, you could be in a little red schoolhouse in the middle of a field and you can have great results, and I believe that to be true. However, I do believe that children deserve fields and they deserve a gymnasium. They deserve to have a performance area and a multipurpose room, especially because that’s what the other children at traditional schools get.”

(Courtesy: City Charter Schools)

Citing financial woes due to low enrollment and problems with its private facility, the governing board of City High School voted Monday to close the charter school immediately, leaving 116 students scrambling to find new schools.

The school, located in Pico-Robertson on Los Angeles’ Westside, had been offered a location at Dorsey High School through Proposition 39 but turned it down because it was too far away from its middle school, according to Valerie Braimah, executive director of City Charter Schools. Choosing a more expensive option of leasing a private location on the Westside at 9017 W. Pico Blvd., the school struggled with enrollment and experienced electrical and air-conditioning problems at its building, which hurt enrollment more, Braimah said Wednesday evening.

With the only option being to cut staff to the point that academic viability of the school would be hurt, Braimah said the board opted to cease operations at the high school immediately. The school expected 150 students on the first day, but only 125 showed up and more dropped out in the first few weeks, leaving the school in financial trouble, Braimah said.

“This was an extremely heart-wrenching decision. This was not a problem with our educational program, this was an operational problem,” Braimah said.

The high school is part of a network of schools called City Charter Schools that includes City Language Immersion Charter, a dual-immersion elementary school in Baldwin Village, and The City School, a middle school. The middle school has been operating for five years, and the network’s leaders wanted to create a high school to serve its outgoing middle school students, but the school struggled to keep its enrollment up.

Braimah said the school was originally offered space from LA Unified at Emerson Community Charter School in Westwood through Prop. 39, a law that requires school districts to offer space to charters at district schools if it has unused classrooms or facilities. This can lead to charters sharing a building with another school, referred to as a co-location.

Emerson is 2.2 miles away from The City School, but the district changed plans and ultimately offered space at Los Angeles High School, which is 7.5 miles away in the Mid-Wilshire district. After a year at LA High, the school asked LA Unified for another location and was offered space at Dorsey High School, which is 6.4 miles away near Baldwin Village.

“Unfortunately, last year we ended up with a Prop. 39 site at Los Angeles High that was an adequate site facilities wise, but was geographically far for a lot of our families, and so a lot of our 8th-grade class did not matriculate to the high school and we started with a class of 60,” Braimah said.

City High only has 9th and 10th graders because it began last year with a freshman class and planned on adding a new class each year. After being offered Dorsey, the school chose to rent a private facility near its middle school, but the problems with the building added to financial woes and also led to several students dropping out, Braimah said.

“Long term, without a permanent facility in our sights and with the lack of predictability on Prop. 39, this problem really would have persisted. We are still young in our program, and we felt it was better for our kids to have another option that is college preparatory,” she said.

Braimah said the district has been helpful in getting students placed in schools and has extended the magnet enrollment deadline for its students. She also said the school has a partnership with Bright Star Secondary Charter Academy, which has offered to take as many students as are interested and has also offered them free busing to their campus near LAX from a central location.

LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer, who represents the Westside, said late Wednesday, “The only thing that we are concerned about in this moment is the students and families impacted by this closure three weeks into the school year.”

When asked about the Prop. 39 issues and if City High had been offered an adequate facility, he declined to comment.

“When something like this happens, we should all remember that these are all of our kids and everyone has a role and a responsibility to make sure every family has the services that they need to make sure that there is not academic injury that would compound the stress that happens when the school closes,” Zimmer said. “So that is what is most important right now. There will be time to talk about what we need to do in terms of our early warning systems to know about when enrollment is at a point where viability is a question so that we know about it before it becomes a disruption.”

The school employs 10 teachers and three administrators, and City Charter Schools is working to find them new jobs, Braimah said. She also said the goal is to have every student placed in a new school by Friday.

Students at Alliance Margaret M. Bloomfield High School in Huntington Park.

Alliance College-Ready Public Schools is the largest independent charter network in LA Unified, with 28 middle and high schools serving over 12,500 students. Ninety-four percent of Alliance’s students come from poverty, yet the charter management organization has a proven track record of outperforming the district and state schools when it comes to key factors like graduation rates and standardized test performance.

But how scalable is the Alliance model and that of other CMOs like it? Are there answers inside their halls to the big questions that have dogged the district for years? Or are charters actually the problem, not the solution, when it comes to the district’s woes, as some detractors like the LA teachers union, UTLA, have charged.

• Read more about charters: How charters went from a ‘novelty’ to dominate the conversation of LAUSD, and 9 questions and answers about LA’s charters.

These questions were raised to new levels of importance about a year ago when an early draft of what was to become the Great Public Schools Now funding plan for Los Angeles schools was leaked to the press and sent shockwaves through the educational world. The plan called for expanding independent charter schools at LA Unified to serve half of all its students.

The plan received significant backlash and has since been modified to include all kinds of successful models, including traditional district schools, but the early draft raised an interesting question: Could charter schools be scaled to size to overtake district schools?

Independent charters already serve 107,000 of the district’s 665,000 students, but there has yet to be a charter management organization that has proven ready and willing to declare itself a scalable, cookie cutter model that could replace district schools.

Alliance is certainly not ready to declare itself that. In fact, Alliance has no plans to add any new schools over the next four years, according to Dan Katzir, Alliance’s president and CEO, who has been in his role since March 2015. Katzir said in his interview for the job he floated the idea of pausing on adding new schools.

“The fact of the matter is even if we stop growing for four years, we need to catch up with our growth from a systems perspective, an infrastructure perspective and a behavior and cultural perspective,” Katzir said.

Katzir also added that even if Alliance doesn’t add new schools, it will continue to grow because six schools in the network are still adding grades in the coming years.

However, despite the pause on growth, Alliance does believe its model is replicable. On its About Us webpage, the title reads, “Proving exceptional at scale is possible.” And Katzir said, “We can scale. We are bigger than 75 percent of other districts in the state, so we can scale.”

ALLIANCE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Ninety-eight percent of Alliance students are African-American or Latino, 94 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, 9 percent have special needs and 17 percent are English learners. The district as a whole during the 2015-16 school year was 82 percent Latino and African-American, 77 percent qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, 12 percent have special needs and 22 percent are English learners.

In the 2014-15 school year, 95 percent of Alliance seniors graduated high school, compared to 72 percent at district schools. On the 2015 Smarter Balanced standardized tests, 57 percent of Alliance juniors met or exceeded the English language arts standards, compared to 48 percent for juniors at district schools, and 28 percent met or exceeded the math standards, compared to 20 percent at district schools. On the 2016 tests, 68 percent of Alliance juniors met or exceeded the ELA standard, compared to 54 percent of LA Unified juniors, and 31 percent of Alliance juniors met or exceeded the math standard, compared to 25 percent for the district. Alliance schools stack up even better compared to neighborhood schools located near them on the 2016 tests. According to Alliance data, its schools performed 82 percent higher in math and 48 percent higher in ELA than neighboring district schools.

Alliance also says that 95 percent of its seniors are accepted into college and 100 percent graduate with the requirements to apply to UC and CSU colleges — known as the A-G standards. During the 2013-14 school year, 28 percent of district seniors graduated having completed all A-G courses, although that number is set to significantly jump this year due to a $15-million credit recovery program.

A MODEL THAT VALUES AUTONOMY

One thing that Alliance leaders stress is that their model isn’t really an exact model, because autonomy and freedom to innovate form a cornerstone of the belief system. Each Alliance principal has the power to hire and fire the staff and has full control over the school’s budget. Katzir said 90 percent of every dollar Alliance receives goes directly to the school, and the home office takes 10 percent for administrative costs.

“What’s happening at one school is different than what is happening at another. So the school has some autonomy to figure out how to hit their markers, and we are trying to figure out what the trends are that can support the most number of people,” said Alliance Chief Development and Communications Officer Catherine Suitor. “There’s a level of autonomy at the school so the school can turn, and the teachers have a level of autonomy, so it goes all the way down. It’s like, how to do you make decisions close to students and look at students? I really would say that is probably the biggest difference.”

The Alliance home office sets the bar for achievement, the overall Alliance values, training and educational approach, but principals are given significant freedom in how they run the school day-to-day. Alliance leaders also credit the small size of their schools as key to their success. The average Alliance grade has around 150 students. The smaller scale allows for each student to receive personalized attention.

“There are small classrooms here. I know all the students, I know all the parents by name. I can tell you a story about every single child in this building,” said Ani Meymarian, principal of Alliance Margaret M. Bloomfield High School in Huntington Park.

Jennifer Dzul, a recent graduate of Alliance Dr. Olga Mohan High School, transferred to an Alliance middle school after going to a large LA Unified elementary school and said the small environment was key to her success. She is set to begin as a freshman at Brown University this month.

“It was very different in that I got to know everybody on a personal basis. The school was so small I was really able to get everybody’s name and learn where they came from, versus elementary school where I have my group of friends and that’s it,” Dzul said. “The academics were a little harder, but because the classes were so small, the teachers noticed when you didn’t do the homework or when you were struggling because they didn’t have to worry about a lot of people.”

Martin Alcarez recently graduated from Alliance Marc and Eva Stern Math Science High School and is off to Stanford this month. His older brother also attended the school, and although he was more interested in attending the larger Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet, his mother convinced him to go to Alliance.

“At Alliance, not only were the teachers communicating with the students, but they were communicating with the parents, and not just about bad things. Because oftentimes at other big high schools, teachers only communicate for bad things,” Alcarez said. “At Alliance, my mom noticed that they really cared for students. Oftentimes teachers would call and say, ‘Oh, your son is doing really well in school and we are giving him an award.’ All those things that don’t seem significant, but they played a huge part in my mom making me go to Alliance.”

Diana Tejeda, a Spanish teacher at Bloomfied, also said the small environment has helped her grow.

“My friends at other schools that are not specifically charters, they feel like there is no room for growth. ‘No one comes to visit my classroom very often. I don’t know who to ask for help, it’s just like a stagnant situation. I go to work, I do my work and I teach.’ Whereas here I receive constant visits from the counselor, from the principal, from the vice principals and from other students that tend to come and walk in,” she said.

CONTROVERSY IN BATTLE WITH UTLA

As the largest charter network in LA UnifIed, and as the issue of how big and how fast charters should grow has come to dominate much of the conversation around the district, Alliance has found itself a target of UTLA. In March 2015 a unionization effort was launched and Alliance has found itself embroiled in a legal battle.

UTLA took a number of complaints to the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB), claiming that Alliance leaders were illegally blocking unionization efforts, at Alliance has lost some rulings before PERB and a state judge, who issued a temporary restraining order against Alliance. State lawmakers also recently approved an audit of Alliance’s finances to see if it was using public funds in its battle with UTLA. For more, see these stories:

• UTLA files complaint against Alliance charters over unionization
• State lawmakers approve audit of Alliance schools’ use of funds in battle with UTLA
• JUST IN: Judge issues restraining order against Alliance in union battle

The situation is still playing out in the courts. Along with the significant backlash that the early draft of what became the Great Public Schools Now plan received, it proves that no charter network, regardless of how successful their students become, is going to quietly grow without finding itself embroiled in political controversy surrounding charters.

“This isn’t just any union. This is UTLA, which is on the record as wanting to destroy charter schools,” said Katzir when asked why Alliance leaders are opposed to unionizing. “And so if you, a parent who is a plumber and a union member, believe that you have made a choice to be here, we believe that one of our elements of success is the relationship between the administrators and the teachers, and the flexibility to be innovative and customize the work for the kids and communities that we serve. Given what we have seen from UTLA, we think a lot of what we have at Alliance would be at risk here.”