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 20 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. 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 (SENI) – created through a collaboration between the Advancement Project, Community Coalition, and InnerCity Struggle. The SENI takes a holistic measure of student need by including neighborhood conditions such as poverty, violence and access to resources. Fourteen of 20 Partnership schools are high- or highest-need. Specifically, our network includes Los Angeles’ fourth and ninth highest-need elementary schools; the second and fourth highest-need middle schools; and the seventh highest-need high school.
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. A recent example of our work centers around equitable funding for high-need schools. In 2018, through advocacy with our partners, we were instrumental in helping secure approval from LA Unified’s Board of Education for a revised Student Equity Need Index, which now includes indicators that more accurately identify and fund the district’s highest need schools. We also advocated for allocation of approximately $260 million of funds to schools in 2019-20 based on their index ranking. We believe equity-based funding is a critical issue for school districts and we are continuing to advocate for more discretionary funds to be prioritized for our highest-need schools.
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.
Explore Our Schools
The Partnership directly serves 13,550 LA Unified students at the elementary, middle, and high school level.
3
Communities
20
Schools
86%
Graduation Rate
