The study shows that as schools are getting higher levels of minority students, there are fewer minority teachers, resulting in some segregation. The study examined school districts in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

The study showed in Los Angeles that white and Asian teachers were overrepresented and that the number of black teachers was in parity to the percentage of black students. The district showed a slight increase in Asian teachers between 2002 and 2011 and “meaningfully large increase” in the percentage of Hispanic teachers (about 7 percent). Even so, the gap between Hispanic teachers and percentage of students still remained large despite the increase in Hispanic teachers.

Although white teachers still are a large percent of the teaching population, the decline in white teachers was steeper in LA Unified than any other race. The study focused on racial mixes to show if there’s a “representation gap” between the percentage of minority students compared to the ethnic mix of their teachers.

The study also found that a severe lack of black and Asian male teachers at LAUSD means “that black and Asian boys were particularly affected by disparities in characteristics between teachers and students.” The number of male Hispanic teachers was actually slightly larger than that of black and Asian teachers of either gender.

New hires of black and Hispanic teachers increased starting in 2009, and the study pointed out that hiring rates for that period were quite low. Attrition rates were higher for white, black and Asian teachers, with about four out of 10 leaving the profession after three years, while for the Hispanic teachers three out of 10 left the profession after the same period.

And, perhaps not surprising, the study showed that the typical Los Angeles teacher, regardless of ethnicity, worked in a school with a high percentage of lower-income students (75 to 85 percent) and minority students (90 to 96 percent).

Matt Gonzales and Adrianna McMullen on panel

A group of LA Unified students joined local and national educators last week to describe academic challenges they face and to suggest ideas for what could help them.

The four-hour discussion last Thursday evening kicked off a weekend of activities sponsored by UTLA in conjunction with the “White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans.”

David Johns, the executive director of the initiative, participated in the discussion with the students and in two other events, at Palisades Charter High School and the Grammy Museum, where the theme was social justice.

Also speaking Thursday was Congresswoman Judy Chu, a Democrat from Monterey Park and the first Chinese-American woman elected to Congress. She discussed her concerns that schools in predominantly poor and ethnic neighborhoods have less-experienced teachers than those in more affluent and predominantly-white schools in the same district.

“Kids are coming to our schools hungry, stressed and unprepared,” Chu said. “We need to strengthen teacher preparation and give the teachers resources.” Referring to the federal “No Child Left Behind” program now under review by Congress, she said, “We all know it’s a failure that needs to be fixed.”

“The bottom line,” she said, “is the voices of minority students need to be heard.”

Seven Latino, black and mixed-race students from charter and traditional schools were part of the Thursday discussion. Some said they experienced racism from other students, even from within their own culture, and from teachers and administrators. They also said they wanted their parents to be more involved in their academic pursuits.

“It’s as simple as my mom listening to what I did at school that day,” said Regina Black, who said that administrators could help by “supporting us when we want to start a club at school” and encourage after-school activities.

Judy Chu

Adriana McMullen broke into tears as she talked about transferring to a higher-achieving school in a mostly-white class neighborhood and being accused of a cheating by a teacher on her entry test. “I took it over and scored 100 percent. At my previous school we were like 46 to a class and sharing desks and books,” she said.

Matthew Gonzalez, who won a Fulbright Scholarship, said many of his friends have parents who have given up on them, and so they no longer try hard. “The parents just don’t participate in their education, and I know I have been lucky that way,” he said.

UTLA vice president Cecily Myart-Cruz said, “These conversations are so important to have to bring students, educators and community members together for this town hall.”

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl stressed that the union will be more involved in Black Lives Matters and talked about seeing white racism very up close when he lived in the east. “Then, when I began teaching in Compton, I was always doing some kind of organizing on the side,” he said.

Caputo-Pearl said, “Young people are experiencing things we find hard to believe. Our school environment has to be based on love and not on fear.”

The state Education Department has ignored its obligation to ensure that all California students receive a minimum level of instructional time, predominantly affecting minorities from low-income families, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.

The lawsuit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court by the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Counsel and others, contends the lack of quality learning time for these students is in violation of the state Constitution’s equal protection guarantee because the state does not ensure all students have access to an adequate education.

State officials did not immediately comment on the litigation.

Cruz vs. California, filed on behalf of students from seven schools, including campuses in the Los Angeles and Compton school districts, aims to protect the rights of students as the state fails to address a wide disparity in educational opportunity, lawyers for the plaintiffs said.

Read the full story here.

“Our teachers and staff will have the resources they need and our students will have access to world-class facilities, which enables us to keep our focus on academics,” said ICEF’s chief executive, Parker Hudnut. “Permanent facilities also demonstrate ICEF’s commitment to providing excellent neighborhood schools to the families in the surrounding community.” ICEF stands for Inner City Education Foundation.

Currently, ICEF’s View Park High School and Middle School are located at 5701 S. Crenshaw Blvd. ICEF plans to acquire the current property and expand the high school, using $10.5 million in tax-exempt bond funding through the California School Finance Authority. The middle school will be co-located for the 2013-14 school year at Crenshaw High School.

An additional $22 million in tax-exempt bond funding has been approved through the CSFA. This will allow ICEF to develop a permanent facility for the middle and elementary school. ICEF say it wants to complete this project for the start of the 2014-15 school year. For the 2013-14 school year, the elementary school will remain in its current locations.

The positive takeaway is that even three years ago (which is when the data used in this interactive was sampled), LAUSD’s rate of suspensions and expulsions was lower than in many other school districts in the nation.

While San Fernando High, the Los Angeles school with the highest suspension rate, had suspended 24 percent of its students, other schools in states like Georgia and Alabama were suspending 80 to 100 percent of their students.

But that doesn’t mean school discipline in LAUSD is in a good place — as LA School Report mentioned Tuesday, a host of recent studies on discipline policies in LA schools show, minority students are targeted for suspension and expulsion in far higher numbers than their white peers, and that high schools in Los Angeles vary widely in what percentage of students they suspend.

Previous posts:  Linking Suspensions and Health Risks; Suspension Rates Vary Widely Among Schools

The new report, which looked at middle and high schools across the country, finds significant discipline gaps between white, black, and Hispanic students. In Los Angeles, suspension rates vary school-to-school: The study found 54 high schools with large suspension numbers, but the district also had 81 high schools with low suspension rates.

The discipline gap is nationwide: “The report found that one in three black middle school males were suspended once or more during the school year,” the Huffington Post reported. “The numbers were worse for racial minorities with disabilities: 36 percent of black students with disabilities in secondary school were suspended at least once.”

According to KPCC’s coverage of the suspension report, “Researchers found that while suspension rates for Asian and white students remained largely unchanged between 1973 and 2010, suspension rates for African-American and Latino students doubled.”

According an Education Week interview with one of the researchers involved in the report, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Chicago are districts that have many schools with high suspension rates.

LA School Report has already noted that a 2012 study from the California Endowment that examined LAUSD and two other California districts found that high suspension rates are correlated with low academic achievement, higher crime rates, higher school dropout rates, and ultimately higher health risks.