Partnership for Los Angeles Schools

Partnership schools see network-wide gains Partnership schools demonstrate consistent growth in SBAC results and continue to narrow achievement gap The California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (commonly known as Smarter Balanced) results show that for the 2017-18 school year, the number of students in the Partnership network meeting or exceeding math standards increased by two percentage points and the number meeting or exceeding English Language Arts (ELA) standards grew by three percentage points. Read more here.

New Policy Paper: Equitable Funding for the Highest Needs Schools Seizing the Opportunity: Equitable School Funding in Los Angeles Our policy paper discusses a critical issue facing our education system: equitable funding for the highest needs schools. The paper updates our analysis of the LA Unified budget and makes recommendations for how LA Unified can build more equity into its budget. Read our new policy paper to learn more.

New Partnership Academic Outcomes Report Available for Download The Secret to Sustainable School Transformation Public Impact, led by Dr. Bryan Hassel, has published a 10-year impact study of the progress the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (Partnership) has made in 18 high-need, K-12 LAUSD schools. The report compares Partnership schools with California schools and the results are compelling. Download the report to learn more.

Empowering Our Schools Our Mission is to Transform Schools and Revolutionize School Systems to Empower All Students with a High-Quality Education We are implementing a sustainable transformation model across 18 high-need district schools, while influencing large-scale, systemic changes in LA Unified, the state of California, and beyond.

What Makes Us Unique The Partnership is one of the largest, in-district public school transformation organizations in the United States. We are an independent non-profit organization that promotes change through an innovative transformation model: working with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LA Unified) under a Memorandum of Understanding, the Partnership manages a network of district schools in Boyle Heights, South LA, and Watts. Our model relies on sustainable and scalable solutions that can be applied at schools beyond our 18 campuses to dramatically improve outcomes for all students.

Scalable and Sustainable Because the vast majority of our nation’s students still attend traditional public schools, we believe in finding solutions to empower students in the district context. And knowing the limitations of public education funding, we only provide supports that can be scaled to and sustainably funded at other high-need district schools. This allows us to influence broader change by working within and alongside LA Unified to find and share solutions.

Highest Need Schools We work where the need is greatest. As ranked by the Student Equity Need Index - created through a collaboration between the Advancement Project, Community Coalition, and InnerCity Struggle - that takes a holistic measure of student need by including neighborhood conditions such as poverty, violence and access to resources. Seventeen of 18 Partnership schools are high- or highest-need, and one is moderate need. Specifically, our network includes Los Angeles’ third and fifth highest-need elementary schools, the second highest-need high school, and third and fifth highest-need middle schools.

Systems Change Our experience directly supporting schools uniquely positions us to identify limitations and opportunities within schools and systems. Our systems change work removes barriers to student success while scaling up solutions. For example, we helped to make gifted testing universal for LA Unified second graders. We also pilot programs that have been adopted across LA Unified, such as comprehensive school report cards to help families better understand a school’s effectiveness.

Power in Partners The historically underserved schools we manage need an array of supports that extend beyond our work, and we know we cannot achieve our mission on our own. Our success is built by creating strong partnerships and leveraging the expertise of partner organizations, community members, and dozens of funders. Our partners help serve the individual needs of our schools and students by providing social emotional supports, health and wellness care, academic interventions, after-school programming, and much more, ensuring success beyond what we alone can provide.