LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer recently sat down with LA School Report at his field office tucked away in an east Hollywood strip mall, where there is a unique partnership with the Youth Policy Institute and the school district that hosts after-school programs, adult classes and classes for homeless youth.

During the hour-long interview, Zimmer spoke about his passion to eradicate the school readiness gap (the achievement gap between students of color from disadvantaged backgrounds as they enter the school system compared to their white and wealthier peers), the relationship between the school board and Superintendent Michelle King, who is entering her ninth month as the leader of the nation’s second-largest school district, and his experience working as a counselor at Marshall High School helping students cross the graduation stage.

Here are Zimmer’s comments on the district’s online credit recovery program, administered by companies including Edgenuity, which has been scrutinized for its rigor amid the district’s recent announcement that its graduation has reached a record 75 percent even as the bar has been raised with the requirement that students pass the A through G, the course criteria established by UC faculty. (Lightly edited for clarity and length.)

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

Q: We’d like to talk to you about the district’s online credit recovery program. On Tuesday (Aug. 23), you made it clear that you have concerns about it.

A: It’s a great concern to me.

Q: What are your concerns? What do you want to see done this year? What did you learn from last year? 

A: So, there’s so many places to start on where I’m concerned. But I think the most important place to start about where I’m concerned is I’m simultaneously concerned about the right now and the long view. The long view is not about how many assignments were in Edgenuity. Not that I’m not concerned about that — actually I am.

But I am much more concerned that we believe having an individual education plan for every middle and high school student is a key lever for moving the needle on this, that we have to be looking very, very carefully at career and training pathways and I don’t think we are. And as a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure we’re not.

And so, both in the immediate short-term when you’re looking at academic counseling loads and ratios, the medium-term in terms of if we do try and bring those down, do we actually have the folks who are credentialed and who intentionally want to work with our students in this way and the long-view is we know we’re going to be in a teacher shortage. I know we’re going to be in counselor shortage. What are we doing in terms of our partnerships to build the right kind of pipelines to make sure the right people are in those counseling seats with the right set of  skills, with the right asset-based mindset about our students and the right balance of a caseload where they can actually do this?

Having an individual graduation plan, as important as it might be, needs to be more important than just having a piece of paper. I mean having a piece of paper actually for urban school districts, where the belief system was not what it was in affluent school districts, is a step and an important step. Because having an individualized graduation plan, by definition, means we expect you to graduate and we expect you to graduate fully completing the A through G’s. So this is not triage or salvage work. This is intentional and very purposeful and is of high rigor and high quality all the way through. When you have a plan, there’s an infinitely better chance that the plan will be executed, as opposed to not having any plan.

Q: How concerned were you when you heard UC was looking at this credit recovery program and might reject the courses? (Update: Since this interview, a UC spokeswoman said UC has reviewed the courses and there will be no changes to the admission status of incoming freshmen accepted to UC.) 

A: So short-term obviously, we’re concerned for our students because it’s certainly no fault of theirs. They completed the courses that they were asked to complete to graduate, fulfilling the A through G’s, so I have a short-term concern, of course, for them.

Am I concerned that they’re looking at this? No. I think they should look at it. I’m very skeptical of online recovery programs. I’m very skeptical of online instruction period. I say skeptical in the literal sense. I’m not a Luddite on it. I’m not reactively opposed to it. I think that we in the new terrain that is blended instruction, blended instruction within a year or two is not going to be some kind of branded movement that the Alliance charter schools try and so, therefore, it is wonderful.

Blended instruction is going to be part of instruction. Period. In many ways it already is. Do our teachers have the right training and support to use it the best way possible? I don’t think so. Not yet. And so, yeah, I’m interested and concerned and skeptical all at the same time. It’s not necessarily negative.

Q: Will the school board be taking another look at this?

A: As it related to Edgenuity and all those contracts, the first thing to say is that let’s be clear on what everybody expected and what happened and what the narrative should and shouldn’t be around this.

Access to an A through G college-preparatory curriculum is a foregone conclusion in affluent school districts, whether they be suburban, wherever they are. Nobody asks that question. Nobody says are our students capable of this level of rigor? It’s assumed that they are. And that is, not to give a lecture, but that is just very clear exposition of systemic racism. That’s what it is and it shouldn’t be called anything else.

And so when there’s all these questions about did our students really do this? I think we have to check ourselves. And go back to 10 years ago, 12 years ago when we first passed the A through G and how much of this is going to hurt students.

Go back two years ago to the editorial pages of the LA Times where literally they said we are setting up these students or those students for failure. We still use this language today. Catastrophic failure did not happen. Let’s say it turns out that this “all hands on deck” approach that really probably the true rate was more like 70 percent than 75 percent if you don’t accept these credit recovery courses.

Q: Do you know how many students used online credit recovery courses in order to graduate?

A: No. Today on Aug. 25, I stand by 100 percent what our numbers are, but I also understand that folks are looking at them and they should. But even if the numbers were 70 percent, it’s important to understand that’s not what people thought would happen, that’s not what people thought our kids were capable of, or our teachers were capable of, or our system was capable of.

Now when there was this big panic around when the fall numbers came out and the fall numbers looked very low, that was even somewhat at the district level, both the panic around that and the misunderstanding of that was mostly from folks who had never worked graduation. I worked graduation for 10 years. I was in charge of the kids who were between 20 and 60 credits down when the fall semester started. And that’s what I did and that was a chunk of my job.

Q: What was your role?

A: I was intervention coordinator at Marshall High School. I always had that as a half-time position. I didn’t want to leave the classroom. We also had over 4,300 students. Marshall was a very different school back then. Most students from the Los Feliz, Silver Lake community did not go to Marshall. It was a very different place and so I understand what it’s like to get kids across the stage. And I understand when we were talking about two to four classes away, we were not in a crisis. We had to be very, very intentional about how it was done, but it was only because there was so much attention and scrutiny to it, now I didn’t think that that was a bad thing because that allowed us to move resources to do this “all hands on deck,” but what people don’t understand is at every comprehensive high school every spring, it’s all hands on deck. That’s what you do.

And so what happened was not this kind of miracle on ice or miracle on the graduation stage that people kind of thought. That’s what happens every year at schools because life happens to kids. Even kids that are not so far off the rails.

After spending almost 20 years working almost exclusively with adolescents, that there’s very few things that are absolutely true. But what’s almost absolutely true, if you’re going to be in high school for four years, you’re going to have one really rough semester. It’s this invisible cloud of adolescent angst, or a break-up, or a family situation, or normal stressors, or non-normative stressors, or whatever it is, it hits almost every kid at some point during adolescence.

If you have the system in place, especially family systems in place, especially family systems in place where the adults do not lose their minds when this happens, then it’s a rough time and everything’s OK. What happens in families that are already in crisis is oftentimes the entire system collapses or the perception of the student is that everything is collapsing around them, and so without a comprehensive system of supports at the school site, that’s how we lose kids.

And sure, there are gang issues, there are teen pregnancies, whatever the issues are, those issues become predominant during a time that’s fairly normative in adolescence, and so when you look at it from that view and you look at how few resources our students had and how just there wasn’t the stability that would put the guardrails around that one rough adolescent period, it was not unusual for even a fairly strong student to have failed a couple of classes because life happened and there weren’t those guardrails. So not tremendously shocking for those of us who have done this that our numbers were where they were. Certainly urgent and certainly demanded everyone’s full attention.

Q: But it was not something you hadn’t seen before?

A: Not something I haven’t seen before. Again, there was some of this that was about the increased rigor under the A through G, absolutely.

All I’m saying is is that there were other factors involved, but kind of the baseline factor very few people outside of those of us who had worked this for so long understood. There were many factors, a whole cacophony of things, that made the numbers probably a little bit more severe than they had been previously, but just at a baseline level you know that you start your senior year, you’re going to have to offer some very focused resources and some very focused attention to get kids across that line.

So there was a very public exhibition on a district-wide level of what happens at schools every year and yes, it was punctuated and maybe a little bit more extreme, but not like a new thing.

Now what was new in some ways were these online credit recovery resources. I visited a bunch of classrooms where they were doing it. You don’t learn completely about a program from visiting it for one day or even two days. Was there a teacher in the classroom? Absolutely. Did the teacher seem like they knew what they were doing? Absolutely. Would I have been thankful if these resources were in place when I was trying to get certain kids across the graduation line? Absolutely. Did it seem like it was real and there was rigor to what I was seeing students doing? Yeah. Yes. but do I know for sure? We won’t know for sure until UC takes a look at it, until we continue to take a look at it.

Q: Did online credit recovery work too well because it has taken the luster off the grad rate? Did you expect to break the graduation record?

A: I think the trajectories have been very steady. If we had gone from 64 or even 67 percent to 75. This was a clear trajectory, more resources on hand, not only the online credit recovery. I encourage you to visit what’s called an II (Individualized Instruction) lab at adult schools that’s a more traditional version of credit recovery. We opened II labs through spring break and that was one of the things behind the scenes. Sometimes, and you’ll rarely see this on the dais, but there are some things I will not just take no for an answer. The idea that we have students striving toward graduation and we were going to shut down for a week during spring break, was just, that could not happen.

Q: Does that usually happen?

A: That’s what usually happens. Even if we only served 100 kids that week, there were seven or eight centers open during the spring break and kids came. There were all kinds of things that were happening to give the proper attention to the first time under A through G. To some of the other factors, it was not just credit recovery. It certainly didn’t work too well. What we have to see is what’s the role of this. What’s the right role.

I have a particular view of how data should be used, particularly standardized test data. I’m sometimes characterized as anti-data, but I’m very concerned about the way data is used. I have strong convictions of data as an instrument around calibration and redesign vs. data as a hammer. Data as a hammer is about political agendas, it’s not about getting to better for kids. The same is true about blended learning, online credit recovery. This is part of our toolbox right now, and to toss it out of that tool box when it can really help students would be both counterintuitive and would not be fair, truthfully.

Q: What is the ultimate goal?

A: We need to design instructional programs so that we’re not in the position of doing credit recovery and certainly not credit recovery because the instructional delivery wasn’t adequate or the supports weren’t adequate. There’s going to be a degree of credit recovery that’s going to happen, as I explained before, because from my experience because of adolescence and the things that happen, there’s always going to be some credit recovery that you need to do. But our entire system should be geared towards, if we really believe these kinds of things about RTI (response to intervention), if we really believe in the differentiation of instruction and we are training our teachers and supporting our teachers well about how you do differentiation that would be what our primary focus should be, not on recovery.

Q: What would you like it to look like?

A: What I would like it to look like, again, is better professional development, better supports for teachers on an ongoing basis, I would like it to have an informational dashboard so that we know where there are problems sooner and we can do intervention rather than recovery.

This is hard work. When you’re really talking about changing mindsets when you’re talking about changing hearts and minds both in general, but at school sites. When you’re talking about constant improvement in terms of instructional quality. We have not given a lot of attention to lowering the affective filter (a term used by Stephen Krashen, which refers to negative emotional and motivational factors — like anxiety, self-consciousness— that can interfere with processing information, like learning a second language) to getting to better instructional quality. It’s not about, do you have a skill that you weren’t trained for in your teacher preparation program. That’s a very deficit mindset approach.

The vast majority of teachers want to do right by our kids. Of course, we have teachers who shouldn’t be in front of kids. We made a lot of strides in the last five years, but that’s not the majority of our teachers. The vast majority of teachers are teachers because they want kids to break through and succeed. We need to lower the affective filter among our instructors on getting to better skill sets to meet all of these needs. Differentiation is one of the hardest things, if you talk to teachers, to do. It’s very hard for me as an ESL teacher. We came to differentiation early on because by definition we’re going to get kids at very different levels especially if you’re in a very diverse ESL class, like I did.

What I want us to commit to is very honest and open conversations with our teams on the front line about what they need. Look, we had a very fear-based system under John Deasy. There were reasons why that happened. In the long run, while there were some shifts and some shaking that needed to happen in the system, we injured the profession. We injured people’s confidence, people did not believe that we believed in them and when you don’t think the leadership in the district believes in you, you’ve got a huge problem.

Coming up: More Q & A with Zimmer, as he discusses the board’s relationship with Superintendent Michelle King and his drive to eradicate the school readiness gap.

LA Unified began the new year facing a formidable challenge, as only 54 percent of its senior class was projected to be on track for passing all their A through G standards, a series of courses required for acceptance into California’s public universities. The new, higher graduation standards went into effect for the first time this year.

But an “all hands on deck” call from the district’s superintendent, Michelle King, along with aggressive implementation of a $15 million credit recovery program, may have saved the district from a sizable drop-off in its graduation rate. District officials have actually predicted the rate will now rise this year to 80 percent, although preliminary estimates won’t be available until November.

Check out the above graphic to see how the district’s graduation rate has looked since the 2009-10 school year, which is the first year the state started using four-year cohort graduation rates as the official measuring stick.

The prediction of an 80 percent graduation rate made by the district was not official, but more anecdotal and based on the high number of students enrolled in credit recovery programs to complete their A through G courses. The last official projection was 68 percent, but the district won’t be doing any more projections until the preliminary rate is announced in November.

Here’s how the LA Unified projections for A through G completion have looked since the fall:

As of April, with 68 percent on track for A-G completion and poised to graduate, a large number of students may still be left behind, whether the district achieves 80 percent or not. There are also graduation requirements beyond A-G, which could impact the numbers. Dropout rates are not yet available for this year’s class, but the class of 2014-15 experienced 6,095 dropouts. One of the district’s five official goals is “100 percent graduation,” and even if the district reaches a new record of 80 percent of its 31,808 seniors graduating, that means more than 6,000 students won’t graduate. And those are in addition to thousands of students who have dropped out of the class over the last four years.

When it comes to this year’s graduating class, there was still a lot of work the district needed to do upon the last projection. Within the 68 percent “on track” to meet their A-G standards was a significant portion failing at least one class after 10 weeks. Here’s how things looked at the last projection on April 4 for the district’s 31,808 seniors:

If LA Unified is able to get to an 80 percent graduation rate this year, it also would represent a significant jump in A-G completion. Here’s how the A-G completion rates have looked since 2010:

Even if LA Unified does reach 80 percent, or simply surpasses last year’s record of 72 percent, it still is behind the state as a whole:

LAUSD Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson

LA Unified increased its official graduation rate to a new high last school year, with 72.2 percent of students receiving a diploma, the district announced this week. The number is a two-point increase over the previous year, which was also a record high.

Since 2009-10, when the state began using four-year cohort rates as the official measuring stick for graduation, LA Unified has increased its rate by 10 percentage points.

“I am very proud of the work we are doing – not only in raising our graduation rates, but in preparing our graduates to enter college or the workforce,” said Superintendent Michelle King in a statement. “Our students, parents, faculty and staff have worked together as a team, and they can take great satisfaction in this accomplishment.”

Graduation rates also were raised to a new high in the state of California, up to 82 percent, the sixth year in a row the rate has climbed, the East Bay Times reported.

The news comes as LA Unified is entering the final few weeks of school under a new raised bar for graduation requirements. The “A though G” series of classes, which if a student passes all with a C will make them eligible for admission info California’s public universities, have presented extra challenges for the district.

In the fall, LA Unified had a projected graduation rate of 54 percent because to many students being unprepared for the new A-G standards. Due to a $15 million credit recovery program that has been hailed as widely successful by district officials but criticized by some education experts, the last projected A-G completion rate calculated by the district was 68 percent — but predicted to potentially top 80 percent.

The district will not be doing any more A-G projections for the rest of the school year, and the preliminary graduation will not be fully calculated until November. Students who complete summer courses will also be eligible to graduate with the class 2016. 

Current efforts by LA Unified in the final few weeks are focused on contacting students shy of credits and getting them enrolled in credit recovery or summer classes. Students are being tracked based on their “tier.” For example, a Tier 1 student is missing one or two classes, a Tier 2 is missing three or four, etc.

“We are focusing on our tiered efforts” said Frances Gipson, LA Unified’s chief academic officer. “Is a student off by one class? Are we monitoring a student who is close to that edge? We have identified steps for each student depending on what tier they are at.”

Gipson also pointed out that since A though G is new this year, as is the credit recovery program, the district is sending officals out into the field to learn what is working.

“We are going out into the filed and meeting with counselors and students and mining those most promising practices thus far. This has ben a pilot program,” Gipson said.

In a May 2 memo from Gipson to King, some schools that are doing interesting credit recovery work was pointed out.

LAUSD report on A through G completion rates.

There is a wide gulf of disparity when it comes to the performance of races and subgroups in LA Unified’s A through G completion and graduation rates, but these groups have come a long way and are doing better than ever before.

Recent district reports breaking down the graduation rate as it heads into the final six weeks of the school year show 68 percent of seniors are currently on track to complete their A-G courses with all D’s or better. A-G completion is a key component required for graduation and is being implemented for the first time this year. The courses are required for acceptance into California’s public universities, although C’s are needed to qualify.

Due to a $15 million credit recovery program that has signed up thousands of students to retake courses after school, on weekends and over holiday breaks, the district has predicted the graduation rate could rise as high as a record 80 percent. But peeling back the layers of the 68 percent mark reveals other numbers that are troubling yet familiar, as African-Americans, Latinos, English learners, foster students and students with disabilities are far behind their peers on A-G completion.

“The racial disparities in achievement and discipline have been consistently on the front burner. It means we need more support, it means we need to have more personalization and it means that you can’t just do more of the same,” said board member Monica Garcia, who is a strong advocate for the A-G standards. “I think it is about a system learning how to succeed with all populations, and LA Unified has more to do.”

Despite the disparities, the district has made big strides over the years when it comes to race and subgroup performance. According to a UCLA report from 2013, 21 percent of African-American high school students were on track with A-G courses in 2008, compared to 59 percent today. Latino students had a 24 percent on track rate then, compared to 67 percent today. English learners had an overall 9 percent on track status, compared to 29 percent for long-term learners and 24 percent for short-term learners today.

Asian students and white students, who are outpacing their peers today, have also made significant strides. Asians have gone from 58 percent on track in 2008 to 83 percent today, and white students have gone from 45 percent to 74 percent. Overall the district had made progress in all students who are getting C’s or better in all A-G classes, from 18 percent in 2005 to 48 percent as of March 7.

When asked about the low performance of African-American students on A-G, LA Unified Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson said the district is taking various steps to help those students and new data coming soon will show that more African-American students from LA Unified are getting into college than ever before.

“We are working with UCLA on a really strong collaborative, and we have seen our numbers increase with our connective efforts around culturally proficient teaching and pedagogy. We have also done some partnering with the College Board and our partners at UCLA making sure we are developing that college-going culture,” Gipson said. “This year we have a record number of students getting into UCLA and our historically black colleges. Those numbers should be out soon.”

She added, “We are doing some intentional practice and research and study and learning from what is working best in our field for our learners.”

LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer at a recent board meeting said the district is focused on bringing more equity to all its students.

“I’ve said this before and want to continue to emphasize that we are striving to bridge the education gap between the haves and the have-nots and give every student a path to quality education and graduation. That remains the civil rights struggle of our day,” he said.

The district’s 141,000-plus English learners remain among the biggest challenge when it comes to A-G because some of the courses essentially require English fluency.

“We have seen a lot of autonomy given to local districts and schools to figure [racial disparities] out. The other groups that are really struggling are English learners, they are not even really eligible to take those A-G courses,” said Sara Mooney, an education program associate at United Way of Greater Los Angeles, which has advocated for the district to keep the A-G standards. “There is a big concern, even though there is differentiated instruction and a lot to of autonomy, we really need to see a greater push for some racial equity and some real supports for African-American students and for English learners.”

LA Unified graphic from a report on A through G completion

The LA Unified school board faced a difficult decision in June.

It had previously voted to raise the bar on its graduation requirements starting in 2016 in an effort to get more students into college, but it was clear not enough students were ready for the challenge and graduation rates would plummet if aggressive action was not taken.

The board ultimately chose to stick with the raised bar, and the district is now entering the final stages of that difficult decision.

More than 6,000 seniors are currently failing at least one of their required “A though G” courses, meaning if they can’t raise their grade to a D by the end of the semester in six weeks, they will not graduate on time. Yet these students are considered “on track” by the district because to be labeled on track, a student need only be enrolled in the required A-G courses.

And 10,000 more are considered “off track,” meaning they are missing one or more A-G class.

“While I am encouraged by the recent efforts and commitment (to A-G), it also shows us the gap of the work that we have today,” board member Monica Garcia told LA School Report. 

Garcia has been one of the board’s strongest supporters of the A-G standards, and at the June board debate said, “This has been a hard road. Not because we are not committed to a hundred percent for everyone,” but because the district struggles to “improve practice that meets the needs of all kids.”

A recent district report showed that 68 percent of seniors are currently “on track” to meet their A-G course requirements — a number that has been predicted to significantly rise before the semester is over — but 30 percent, or 6,400, of those on-track students were failing a course at the 10-week mark. While district leaders have expressed optimism that many students are getting the help they need, it is clear that a significant number of students who last year would have otherwise graduated with the same final transcript will not do so this year.

Thousands of other students will also graduate having earned D’s in the A-G courses, which means they will not be eligible for California’s public universities because C’s are required. And still thousands more will graduate only due to a massive $15 million credit recovery program that allows them to earn a C if they can demonstrate proficiency in an online course, a practice that has been called into question by some education experts who characterize it as an essentially cheap and faulty way of getting a student to graduate.

A report this month from the Public Policy Institute of California studied the impact the raised A-G standards are having on a number of districts that have taken them on. San Diego Unified, which like LA Unified is also implementing A-G standards for the first time this year, is facing a huge drop-off in graduation rates.* ( The district is undertaking a wide-scale credit recovery program for the first time this year similar to LA Uniifed’s and it is unclear to what level this could boost the graduation rate.)

The results at San Diego Unified are bittersweet, with more students than ever meeting the A-G requirements, while at the same time graduation rates are set to drop from 87.5 percent in 2014 to 72 percent this year. Ten percent more San Diego students may become eligible to apply to the California public university systems, but 16 percent more may fail to graduate.

“In sum, by increasing graduation requirements, San Diego and other districts have opened more doors to success. Ironically, they have also opened more doors to failure, in the sense that a greater number of students are now at risk of not graduating,” the report stated.

While district leaders are predicting that LA Unified will avoid any graduation crisis due to the credit recovery program, and that graduation rates may even rise to new highs, the district still grapples with the same issues San Diego is facing from choosing to raise the graduation bar. Like San Diego, LA Unified lowered the planned requirement for C’s to be earned in A-G classes for graduation to D’s, even though it meant the ultimate purpose of getting kids into college would not be met.

According to a district memo, as of March, 48 percent of LA Unified seniors were on-track to graduate with C’s or better in all A-G courses, meaning if the district actually meets the predicted rate of 80 percent graduation this year, some 11,000-plus students will be graduating without qualifying for admittance to California’s public universities, which is the entire intent and purpose of the A-G graduation standards.

“You talk about the right to a diploma and this is a debate that we have, and I don’t think there is really one right answer that could apply to all students,” said Sara Mooney, an education program associate at United Way of Greater Los Angeles, which has advocated for the district to keep the A-G standards. “For students, the purpose of the courses are not just to make you eligible for college but this is also a conversation about the quality of a child’s education, and that means the quality of their diploma and the weight that their diploma carries after they graduate. We really have to be responsible for this in offering them the resources to be successful in their school and subsequently in life.”

When asked how she weighs the balance between the higher standards and the needs of the students who will not make it to graduation as a result, Garcia said, “For the last 10 years I have represented the kids who don’t get a diploma and who do get a diploma. And every year there have been more young people getting a diploma. So we are not new to dealing with the absence of success for our system to get to everybody. That is not the new piece. The new piece is that we do have a challenge to the system in how do we manage what is a California requirement, and what is an LAUSD requirement. And we have more students completing the courses required for college, which is a very good thing.”

One promising statistic for A-G supporters is that overall the district’s A-G completion rate has gone from 18 percent in 2005 to the projected-and-rising 68 percent of today.

“I am encouraged by what I see for us moving toward higher standards and higher levels of personalization,” Garcia said. “I think it’s every exciting that, yes, we have increased the challenge, and repeatedly our young people have said I need high expectations like that.”

* A previous version of this story said San Diego Unified was not undertaking a large credit recovery program. The report citied includes only data through August before the credit recovery program began. 

To be labeled “on track” a student need only be enrolled in the required A-G courses, and if these failing grades do not improve to at least a D by the end of the semester, these roughly 6,400 seniors would not be eligible to graduate on time — which would drop the current projected graduation rate from 68 percent to 48 percent.

Frances Gipson, LA Unified’s chief academic officer, said a number of actions have been taken to get extra help and resources to the students who are failing a course, and the district is still hopeful that last year’s record graduation rate of 77 percent will be surpassed.

“We are seeking to exceed last year’s expectations, that is our goal,” Gipson told LA School Report. 

Due in part to a $15 million credit recovery program that has been aggressively implemented this school year, the projected A-G completion rate has risen steadily, up from 54 percent in January and 63 percent in February to now stand at 68 percent. District officials in February predicted LA Unified may graduate 80 percent of its seniors, which would be an all-time record.

Gipson said the extra help being given to seniors failing an A-G course include having counselors meet with the students and letters sent to the student’s parent or guardian. School counselors “have met with all students in the class of 2016 that are currently on-track but received a fail at the 10-week mark to discuss intervention and supports needed to pass and stay on track,” according to an April 18 memo to Superintendent Michelle King from Gipson and Carol Alexander, director of A-G Intervention and Support.

As far as if the 20 percent failing an A-G course was cause for concern, Cynthia Lim, executive director of LA Unified’s Office of Data and Accountability, said that it was hard to determine what the number meant because “this is new. We’ve never had A-G as a graduation requirement before, so this is all new.”

Gipson added that the 20 percent number “is relatively consistent with past patterns we have seen with students in terms of, as you think about your own child or your friend’s children, there are always those who may be getting a D or an F and we need find out why they may be getting a D or an F. Is it because of attendance? Is it because they need extra tutorial support? Are they not turning in assignments? Do they need extra assignments? I think there are multiple pathways we can explore.”

The credit recovery program was enacted by the school board this fiscal year to help offset a potential graduation crisis, as this year is the first time the A-G courses are required for graduation. The courses, if all are passed with a C or better, would make students eligible for acceptance in California’s public universities, although seniors only need to get a D in order to graduate.

Before the credit recovery program began across the district in the fall, the projected graduation rate was 54 percent, a steep decline from last year’s all-time high of 77 percent.

The credit recovery program involves getting seniors not on track to take extra coursework on weekends, after school and during holiday breaks. Many of the courses are online and only require students to demonstrate basic proficiency in the subject, which has caused some to question the academic rigor of the online courses. The district and Gipson have previously defended the academic value of the courses.

Over spring break in late March, the district enacted the “Spring Plus” program at 15 high schools that provided resources and dedicated staff to get students back on track, according to Gipson and Alexander’s memo. The program has continued on Saturdays since spring break and is scheduled to be completed May 28. Attendance has varied depending on the day, but 313 seniors showed up at the 15 high schools on the first Monday of spring break.

According to the April 4 memo, 21,729 seniors are currently on-track to complete their A-G requirements, but 6,428 — or 30 percent — received an F at the 10-week mark. There are 4,746 seniors off-track by one or two courses, 1,455 off-track by three or four courses and 3,878 off-track by five or more courses.

In June, when facing the stark graduation projections due to the coming A-G requirements, the school board lowered the required grades in A-G courses from a C to a D for the class of 2017. (The class of 2016 could always receive D’s for graduation.) The A-G courses, which were first conceived and passed by the board in 2005, are aimed at getting more LA Unified students into California’s public universities. Despite the lowering of the bar, the district has made significant progress since 2005, according to a March 7 memo by Gipson and Alexander that showed 48 percent of all LA Unified high school students are passing their A-G courses with C’s or better.

“This shows tremendous growth since the class of 2005, when only 18 percent graduated meeting the A-G course requirements with a C or better,” the memo stated.

The report, which highlights how many students are on track to complete their “A through G” courses required for graduation, shows that since the end of the fall semester, every traditional high school in the district not on a 4×4 block schedule has improved its projected completion rate. (Statistics on the handful of schools on the non-traditional 4×4 schedule, which allows students to take more classes, will be more accurately compiled after March 21.)

The school-by-school breakdowns were put together in part so that the district can flood extra resources to the schools that need it most and have helped identify schools that will take part in a special credit recovery session over spring break, according to Carol Alexander, director of the district’s A-G Intervention and Support.

“We are piloting some different programs and looking out right now, as we pilot these, we are really seeking out best practices and learning from the field what’s working and not working,” Alexander said.

Broken down by board district, the report gives each school a color coding of red, yellow or green, with green indicating a completion rate of over 70 percent, yellow indicating a completion rate of 69 to 50 percent, and red indicating a completion rate of less than 50 percent. As of Feb. 29, 63 schools with a traditional schedule were marked green, 42 were yellow and four were red.

All had made improvements since the fall, and some with dramatic results. For example, the Sonia Sotomayor Learning Academies Los Angeles River School jumped from a red 42 percent to 69 percent, and Sun Valley High from 32 percent to 60 percent.

“We are looking at matching if not increasing the graduation rate we experienced last year,” Alexander said.

Click here to see a school-by-school breakdown by board district: BD1, BD2, BD3, BD4, BD5, BD6 and BD7.

During the upcoming spring break, 12 schools that are either in the red or low-yellow category will be organizing a special credit recovery session offered through the adult education department and also paid for through its budget, and not through the $15 million credit recovery program. Other high schools will also be offering special spring break credit recovery sessions through the $15 million program, Alexander said.

“Across the board, all of our high schools are putting their arms around our students and utilizing spring break,” Alexander said.

In the report,  LA Unified’s Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson pointed to the “personalized” approach the district has been taking to A-G completion, meaning each school has an A-G report on each student and has contacted each student off track to offer corrective credit recovery options.

“I want to underscore that the personalization of efforts with our leaders, teachers and counselors is what is improving the opportunities for the class of 2016,” Gipson wrote.

The district’s massive credit recovery program was enacted this school year to help counter-balance a graduation crisis that would have likely occurred without it. This year is the first graduating class that will need to fulfill a lineup of courses called “A through G” that make students eligible for acceptance to admission to California’s public universities if they get a “C” grade or higher.

As a result of the higher standards, the projected graduation rate this October was 49 percent. Around the same time the district began to offer seniors special credit recovery courses — many of them online — that help them make up credits they previously failed through an accelerated program taken during free periods, after school, on weekends and on breaks.

Due to the success of the credit recovery program, the projected graduation rate has jumped officially to 63 percent, with district officials predicting last year’s record-high rate of 74 percent will likely be matched or exceeded.

Despite its success, the credit recovery program is not without its detractors, as some academic scholars and institutions are questioning the rigor and value of the courses. Gipson has defended the value of the courses as academically sound.

An LAUSD progress report released this week shows the projected A though G completion rate for the class of 2016 has risen to 63 percent. (Credit: LAUSD)

LA Unified appears to be making significant progress on its projected graduation rate this year through a “very personalized approach,” with a new report stating the district may even surpass last year’s record rate of 74 percent.

A January progress report obtained by LA School Report showed that only 54 percent of seniors were on track to meet their “A though G” course requirements for graduation. That report included all data from the fall semester but did not include any from the district’s $15 million credit recovery program, which began in late fall. But now a new progress report including some data from the credit recovery program shows that 63 percent of seniors are on track to complete their A-G courses.

According to the report released Friday, 17 percent of seniors are missing only one or two courses. With the credit recovery program making progress on getting many of them into the courses they need, “there is optimism,” said LA Unified Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson.

“These two predictive bands (63 percent + 17 percent) could potentially result in exceeding the 2014-15 graduation rates, with higher expectations. We continue to provide additional pathways through our A-G recovery efforts as we continue an ‘all means all’ performance mindset,” the report states.

According to internal district reports obtained by LA School Report, an estimated 54 percent of seniors are on track to meet their “A through G” requirements. The actual graduation rate could be even lower as there are several other requirements to graduate.

While the estimate is a stark drop from last year’s all-time high of 74 percent, it has been known for years that the district was facing a steep decline this year, when stricter graduation requirements went into effect.

But while the drop was anticipated, the recent internal reports showing a 27 percent plunge from last spring’s rate elicited an alert from the superintendent directing urgent new steps, including weekly updates from staff and letters sent monthly to parents, starting in February, informing them of the necessary courses that need to be completed.

The district would not disclose how many seniors had received “off track” letters this month. According to data available in October, the district had 33,420 seniors in the 2015-16 school year, meaning an estimated 15,373 would currently be off track for graduation.

The new estimate does not reflect progress by a $15-million credit recovery program begun last fall that puts students in specials classes after school and during breaks to help them pass classes they previously failed. District leaders in November had reported an extremely high participation rate in the program and predicted a high pass rate, which if proves true could land the 2016 graduation rate close to last year’s.

Still, despite the optimism over the ongoing credit recovery program, Superintendent Michelle King wrote in a January email to local district superintendents, “This is ‘all hands on deck.'” The email was sent a week after she was installed as superintendent, and King also created a timeline that calls for regular updates to her office as well as benchmarks for the district to meet between now and the end of the semester.

King inherited a number of major district problems, but perhaps none more urgent than the pending graduation crisis. In the memo, King said that “my top priority is ensuring that all students graduate and complete A-G requirements.”

She added, “This [54 percent estimate] will likely increase in the coming weeks as a result of the constant monitoring, additional resources to schools, and ongoing credit recovery efforts you have coordinated. Nonetheless, if even one student fails to graduate, that is one too many — we cannot rest until every student graduates college-prepared and career-ready.”

Another district report obtained by LA School Report includes a school-by-school breakdown of estimated graduation rates and shows that some schools are facing a daunting challenge. The Foshay Learning Center (91 percent) and Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet (81 percent) are well ahead of last year’s 74 percent graduation rate for the district, while others like Dorsey High (41 percent) and Verdugo Hills High (43 percent) are far behind.

The new A-G graduation standards were drawn up by the board in 2005. The standards, which require students to pass a series of classes making them eligible for admission into California’s public universities, go into effect for the first time this year. The 2005 board thought that 11 years was enough time for the district to improve its curriculum efforts to meet the raised bar, but it was not.

In the face of the pending graduation dropoff, the school board amended the requirements in June so that students only need to earn a “D” in the A-G classes and not the “C” that would be required for college eligibility starting in 2017. The move was a significant concession by the board, as the entire purpose of the A-G curriculum was to get more students into college. This year’s class was always to be allowed a “D” to meet A-G requirements.

The June resolution reaffirming the board’s commitment to A-G called on the superintendent’s office to develop a long-term plan set to begin in the 2016-2017 school year, leaving the class of 2016 caught somewhat in the middle and without much help but for the credit recovery program.

An A-G task force also produced a comprehensive report in the fall that calls on detailed and wide-ranging improvements the district needs to make to improve A-G completion, but much of it is also broader and long-term without much immediate help for the class of 2016.

The new 54 percent estimate — which includes all data from the fall semester — is a bump from the last available district estimate, which in October showed 49 percent of seniors were on track with A-G. But with only marginal improvement over the fall semester, it is clear that the credit recovery program is key to making any significant increase before the spring semester concludes.

Frances Gipson, the district’s chief academic officer, wrote in an email to LA School Report that the credit recovery program is going well.

“Superintendent King is monitoring our A-G progress with focused weekly meetings and updates,” said Gipson, who is in charge of the A-G implementation plan. “Students are currently enrolled in recovery options and are also successfully completing advanced courses. Our approach is about access, accomplishment and providing a personalized opportunity for our scholars.”

For credit recovery, each of the six local district superintendents was given the freedom to craft their own plan using a number of options, part of a decentralization effort that was put into place by former Superintendent Ramon Cortines. Each plan rolled out at a slightly different time throughout October and November, depending on the district.

Many of the credit recovery options are computer-based, like Edgenuity, which is being used on a wide scale. Students take the classes on Saturdays, during free periods or after school. The computer courses either have a teacher adding some instruction to go along with the computer program, known as blended learning, or it is or an all-online course, known as virtual learning.

In the fall, a high level of seniors missing A though G courses were signed up. For example, Gipson — who at the time was the Local District East superintendent before being promoted to her current role — reported that every senior short of an A-G course had been signed up for credit recovery in her district.

While Gipson reported that credit recovery is still going well in 2016, she did not offer any estimates as to what level it may impact the graduation rate.

“Our counselors and teachers are amazing. Local school leadership teams are rallying around our graduates, and our data points continue to increase,” Gipson said. “For example, over the winter break more than 800 student courses were recovered through our A-G localized plans.”

The credit recovery program, if it turns out to be as successful as has been predicted by district officials, is being achieved through the relatively modest cost of $15 million. When asked directly in the fall why the district hadn’t done anything like it before, Gipson said, “As we are coming out of one of the worst financial times in educational history, as a leader I’m happy it is happening now for kids and we can put the resources behind it to make sure it happens for kids.”

The report, “Access Denied: Rising Selectivity at California’s Public Universities,” which was produced by the Campaign for College Opportunity, comes just as LA Unified’s effort to get more of its graduates eligible for the UC system goes into effect with the class of 2016. This school year, all graduates must have taken and passed a series of classes required for acceptance into the UC system called A through G.

The new A through G standards require students to get at least a D grade in all the classes to graduate, even though a C grade in the classes is a minimum requirement for acceptance to the UC system. However, according to the report, a C grade isn’t going to cut it anymore, as the average grade point average of admitted students to six of the nine UC campuses in 2014 was over a 4.0.

The gap between the number of UC applicants and those admitted has more than doubled between 1996 and 2013, the report concluded.

At the top of the list is a resolution to ease rigorous graduation requirements and calls for another study — this would be the third in ten years — of how well the district has implemented the controversial A-G policy. Answer: Not very well.

Beginning with the Class of 2017 students must pass 15 college prep courses with a grade of “C” or better in order to receive their diplomas. But new data from the district shows that only 37 percent of students are on track to graduate meeting those standards.

The new plan, sponsored by board members Monica Garcia, Steve Zimmer, and George McKenna, would make a “D” an acceptable grade and essentially thwart an imminent graduation rate crisis. It would also trigger a six month study to catalogue schools that have successfully implemented the policy as well as those that haven’t.

Students at schools that are falling short would receive additional resources including an Individual Graduation Plan, access to summer school or adult education courses, and additional college and restorative justice counselors. Schools would receive extra funding while teachers get more professional development.

Similarly, a resolution by McKenna, Zimmer and Monica Ratliff called “Zero Dropouts” targets the same at risk population of students and makes several recommendations for keeping them enrolled in the district.

One suggestion: extend high school eligibility to age 22 in all cases for students who have not earned sufficient academic credits for graduation after four years of enrollment.

The district does not have a cut-off age for students. “We don’t have a clear policy at this time,” Gayle Pollard-Terry, a spokesperson for the district told LA School Report.

“We look at each case on individual basis,” she said. “We certainly are opposed to checking students out of school just because they have turned 18. It depends on number of credits and what makes the best sense for the student in terms of reaching the graduation requirements.”

Another suggestion by board members is to make school hours more flexible to accommodate high school students who may need additional support due to unique situations, including employment needs, parenting and family responsibilities, and health related issues.

The measure also calls for changes on campus including smaller class sizes and expand credit recovery programs including summer school and adult education. Adding more counselors and restorative justice programs would also be integral to the plan.

Finally, a resolution to dedicate one Communications Department staffer as the district’s premiere marketer is intended to boost enrollment which has been in decline for a decade.

Enrollment declines by about 3 percent annually owing to a decreasing birthrate, movement of families outside district lines, and the increasing popularity of charter schools. That costs the district about $100 million per year.

Ratliff argues that the district is losing the fight to charter schools because they “frequently have marketing materials that are designed to sell their schools and programs.”

An LA Unified marketing guru would do the same for many of the district’s most successful schools and programs. Additionally, district-run schools in immediate competition with other educational providers will shoot to the front of the line for help, getting marketing assistance as soon as next week.

Although Ratliff is the sole sponsor, the resolution encompasses many of the ideas discussed at last month’s meeting of the Committee of the Whole, which includes Zimmer and McKenna.

In a major reversal, LA Unified school board members are proposing to change graduation requirements that compel students to pass college prep courses with a “C” or better, making a “D” an acceptable grade to earn their high school diplomas.

If passed, the resolution by board members Monica Garcia, Steve Zimmer and George McKenna would likely prevent an imminent graduation rate crisis.

Under the district’s current A-G policy, which goes into full effect with the Class of 2017, the only way for students to successfully complete high school is to also be eligible for enrollment in California’s public universities. UCs and Cal State schools alike set a minimum “C” bar for 15 college-prep courses. But data made public by the district in March revealed that only 37 percent of the first cohort will meet the rigorous standards.

“This is not a retreat from the purpose of A-G nor should it be read as a capitulation to those who said [the tougher standards] are setting up these kids for failure,” Zimmer told LA School Report.

“It is just a recognition that there is an urgency to move the access and equity agenda forward: to give all kids equal access to a rigorous college prep education,” he said, adding, “The intention was never to punish kids if we did not make the resources available.” 

Despite ten years of implementation and studies in 2010 and 2012 tracking districtwide progress, records show many schools often in the poorest pockets of LAUSD still do not offer core college prep courses.

The updated resolution by Zimmer and his colleagues calls for an immediate “equity audit” of A-G courses offered to be completed by October. The report “must surface and identify gaps in resources, interventions and access to and successful completion of A-G courses in all high schools.”

Further, the resolution seeks to create an intervention plan for schools failing to provide adequate access and compels the district to devise an Individual Graduation Plan for all seniors who are struggling to meet the new standards.

“It is clear that we have not resourced A-G properly,” Zimmer said. “That is why we need to a 360 degree report by the best experts in the filed to tell us where we need to make the kind of investments that are necessary.”

Only after allocating the right amount of resources to struggling students, he added, can the district reconsider reverting to a “C” or better threshold for graduation.

In the interim, “we can’t let the children who have been failed by those responsible to carry the burden,” Zimmer said.

The addition of board member McKenna’s name to the measure is evidence of a significant compromise on the issue. McKenna strongly opposed the resolution at the last board meeting and was the driving force behind postponing a vote at the time.

McKenna’s strongest objection to the A-G policy has been the problem it poses for students who may not be interested in attending college but depend on a high school diploma.

“I am opposed to the requirement of a ‘C’ grade to get a diploma,” he said at the May meeting. “A ‘D’ is a passing grade no matter what UC or Cal State [schools] say.”

Blocking those students from graduating could destroy their entire futures, he argued.

“Not everybody needs to go to college but everybody needs a high school diploma,” he said.

By Martin Blythe

In a commentary last week, four LA Unified students demanded that the district retain the A-G college-prep graduation requirements —  Cs or better for a diploma — despite warnings that it would lead to tens of thousands of students not graduating in the years ahead.

While more money and resources often solve problems, they will not address the core issue here, which I believe is the A-G requirement itself. The A-G requirement was designed to fix one problem, but it was far too simplistic, and we are now seeing the unintended consequences: it is hurting too many students.

It is now time to ask whether every one of the A-G courses has to be a requirement for high school graduation.

Advanced algebra? Two years of a language?

This quickly becomes a zero-sum game, I know, but couldn’t we offer several different pathways to graduation – some semi-academic ones in addition to the specifically academic one? Instead of throwing money at remedial summer school, a better choice would be spending on oversight for assuring true choice and for tutoring, options that have not been available for some college-aspiring students.

I am not arguing for a return to the segregation of the vocational track. I am arguing for flexibility.

Why not take the non-required “electives” that are worth 25 credits and boost them to 40 credits, and allow students to take more ROP (Regional Occupational Program) and CTE (Career and Technical Education) and Linked Learning courses — agriculture, automotive, technology and other specialized trades — on the way to 210 total credits?

Then allow students to drop a course or two from A-G that they cannot manage or that they have failed. From what I have seen, struggling students are dropping the optional ROP/CTE courses they like — and are succeeding in — because they have to spend more time repeating the required A-G courses that they have failed.

I also would like to see these alternative pathways integrated more with Special Ed.

Sure, any time something like this is brought up, it’s perceived as a second-class “vocational” track for working class Hispanic, African-American and Special Ed students. There is always a risk that students will be steered wrongly, but we have that happening already.

Yes, we should continue to offer students the academic pathways and supports they need if they want to go to a four-year university, but we’re being dishonest to the students by pretending C grades will be enough.

Even if they get to a community college, 70 percent of California’s community college students fail to graduate or transfer. Courses in agriculture, horticulture, fashion and design, automotive, machine shop, sports and so on can help keep struggling students focused on staying in school and graduating. Isn’t that the true goal here?

As we continue to be dishonest, kids will fail or flee to charter schools that can offer them an education with a practical, learning-based approach and the possibility of real jobs ahead of them. 

I just wish these four student authors could see that flexibility and choice can also be part of their fight for equity and justice. Do they really want to deny their fellow students a choice over their pathway to graduation? Do they really want to see no further debate about how we define A-G? Beware of the law of unintended consequences.

Martin Blythe is a parent of an LAUSD 9th grader

In a surprise move today, the LA Unified School Board postponed a vote on a resolution to fix the implementation of college prep graduation requirements, called A through G.

The resolution co-sponsored by board members Mónica García and Steve Zimmer was delayed after members complained that they didn’t have enough understanding of the latest amended version of the resolution and what the budget impact could be. The latest version, adding specific language about graduation requirements, was submitted and distributed to board members late yesterday. That lead several board members, including George McKenna to request more time to analyze the impact of changes.

“I just found out this morning that we had a special meeting about this,” McKenna said, clearly exasperated about the changes to the document. “And reading it is not the same as analyzing it.”

Among the changes McKenna opposed is the requirement for students to get a grade of “C” or better in all college-prep courses.

“I am opposed to the requirement of a C grade to get a diploma,” he said. “A ‘D’ is a passing grade no matter what UC or Cal State [schools] say.”

McKenna was joined in voting to postpone consideration of the measure to June by Bennett Kayser, Mónica Ratliff and board president Richard Vladovic.

“We have a crisis where 30 percent of our kids are not on track,” Vladovic said, referring to the district’s latest graduation rate projections should it adhere to the guidelines of A through G. He argued that more time would allow the district to consider allocating additional revenue to summer school programs that would help students in need.

“I need to find that money and we’re going to have to do it, so I wanted some time to do that,” he said to applause from the audience.

The board had scheduled consideration of the measure at 4:30 and several community organizations supporting the resolution had planned a rally. They estimated a crowd of about 500 would show up in support.