What Sets the Partnership Apart

As an in-district partner to LA Unified, we are uniquely positioned to be able to recognize and identify potential solutions to systemic challenges that adversely impact schools in high-need communities. We leverage our access and influence through relationships with district leaders and partners to elevate issues we see impacting students in high-need schools.

How We Influence Change

We leverage our partnership with LA Unified to help draw attention to critical issues that prevent students in high-need schools from gaining equitable access to a high-quality education. We have pursued systemic change using several strategies that vary in approach and public visibility:

  • Research, analysis and policy recommendations based on our learning and experience alongside school leaders, teachers and parents in our communities
  • Relationship building and communication with education leaders
  • Pilot programs to test innovative solutions
  • Direct advocacy to district leadership and board members to illuminate policies that impede student success
  • Impact litigation to challenge laws and policies that create inequities
  • Coalition-building with community partners
  • Implementation advocacy to ensure district follow-through
  • Parent advocacy campaigns
  • Thought leadership & influence within our communities and the education sector

Systems Change Impact

Our persistent focus on the school-level realities of policy change has enabled us to see tangible successes in our work to move systems. Below are some examples of the systems change we have worked on:

  • Adoption and implementation of a new funding formula that will re-allocate $280 million into an equity-based budget program
  • Universal gifted testing leads to increased identification of Black and Latino students
  • Impact litigation prioritizing additional staff in the highest need schools

Graphic outlining the Partnership's advocacy work.