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
