District I Report to LAUSD Board

1. District I Report to LAUSD Board April 8, 2014 Dr. Sylvia G. Rousseau Liaison to the Board

3. District I Higher Perf. African. Amer. Students

4. Higher Perf. AA Students in Schools Outside Higher Perf. Zip Codes

5. Higher Perf. African Amer. Students in Schools Outside Higher Perf. Zip Codes

6. Higher Perf. Latino Students in Schools Outside Higher Perf. Zip Codes

7. Higher Perf. Latino Students in Schools Outside Higher Perf. Zip Codes

8. Higher Perf. Latino Students in Schools Outside Higher Perf. Zip Codes

9. African Amer. and Latino Math Proficiency in Higher Performing Zip Code Schools

10. African. Amer. and Latino ELA Proficiency in Higher Performing Zip Code Schools

11. Zip Code Discrepancies • Board District I schools outside zip codes 90034 and 90035 have the highest concentration of African American and Latino students and the highest concentrations of Economically Disadvantaged students. These schools have lower percentages of Proficient and Advanced students as compared to schools in zip codes 90034 and 90035. • Proficiency rates for African American students in nearly all elementary schools outside these two zip codes are at 40% or lower in ELA and/or math.

12. Zip Code Discrepancies • In none of the District I elementary schools with predominantly Latino enrollment are Latino students’ proficiency rates above 56 % proficient; • Cienegais the only school in which 56 % of Latino students are proficient in ELA. • Six elementary schools in District I show Latino students with math proficiency rates above 60 % (Queen Anne at 68 %; 135th Street at 60.10 %; Vermont at 61.20 %; 61st Street at 62.4 %; and135th at 60.10 %; and Cienega at 65.80 % • African American and Latino students in zip codes 90034 and 90035 tend to score higher in both ELA and math than in other zip codes where there are higher concentrations of economically disadvantaged students and African American and Latino students.

13. Zip Code Discrepancies • Outlier schools with predominantly African American enrollments and proficiency rates above 60 % proficient in ELA and math among African Americans are Baldwin Hills and 74th Street and Cimarron Elementary in math. • Proficiency rates for African American students in nearly all elementary schools outside these two zip codes are at 40% or lower in ELA and/or math.

14. Zip Code Discrepancies • Similar trends exist in middle schools and high schools. At Burroughs Middle School in zip code 90005, African American students’ proficiency rates in ELA are 62.9 % and in math the rate is 44.4 %. • Latinos at Burroughs are achieving ELA proficiency at a level of 67.1 % and math at a rate of 46.8 %. • At Hamilton High School 49.7 % of African American students are achieving proficiency in ELA and 10 % in mathematics. • Latino students are achieving proficiency at a rate of 50.6 % in ELA and 13.0 % in mathematics.

15. What Do “Low-income” and “Neediest” Mean? • Poverty – schools have little control over poverty, but they have control over the school’s response to poverty. • Also, poverty becomes an excuse to overlook systemic issues that perpetuate poverty. • Poverty limits youth to fewer opportunities to thrive. • Schools also limit some youth’s opportunities to thrive more than others.

16. What Do “Low-income” and “Neediest” Mean? • Research shows that poverty is a major predictor of parent and child depression (Denny, Clark, Fleming, & Wall, 2004). • High poverty schools cannot afford to subject students to instability in teaching staffs and fewer adults equipped to help them develop positive identities in spite of some of the community issues they face. • Attention to these elements is the major means of reducing discipline issues leading to suspensions.

17. What Do “low-income” and “Neediest” Mean for District I • Poverty or income is not the issue. • The greater issue is how institutions like education respond to poverty and the role they play in reproducing the social order that destines some children to remain poor while others remain privileged. • Key Questions to Answer • What do we believe is the cause of poverty? • Why have the same groups of people in the nation continued to be “the poor” for generations?

18. What Do “low income” and “Neediest” Mean for District I? • Inside the answers to these questions lie the solutions to the persistent problem. • Without confronting these issues data will look the same 10 years from now. • We continue to treat the symptoms, not the causes. • Considering use of LCFF monies must address these questions.

19. What Treating All Students Equally Really Means • All human beings acquire language in the context of home and community and that language holds their cognitive structures and ways of knowing. • Vygotsky says language is the most significant psychological tool for learning a student brings to the school setting.

20. What Treating All Students Equally Really Means • All students are entitled to school conditions that meet their human needs as expressed in Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs: physiological, safety, belongingness and love, esteem, and finally self-actualization – achieving one’s full potential. • All human beings in America are entitled to not just “highly qualified” but high quality teachers. • All human beings are entitled to stable relationships and stability in their environments.

21. What Treating All Students Equally Really Means • All human beings’ parents have a right to play a partnering role in the education and lives of their children.

22. Implications of Data • Schools historically in LAUSD have provided inadequate conditions and resources required to meet needs of high concentrations of culturally and linguistically diverse students in low-income areas. • Conditions include a history of high rates of teacher transiency, absence of resources to address effects of poverty and systemic racism, opportunities for students to acquire Standardized/Academic English (Note these are schools with faithful implementation of AEMP

23. Implications of Data • Conditions in district schools have steadily declined due to budget reductions that affect students of color and poverty disproportionately and the over-reliance on charter schools to correct these harms. • Declining enrollment leading to loss of revenue; loss of revenue leading to staff reduction. • Budget reductions based on an “equal application” formula vs an “equitable application” formula have resulted in reduction or elimination of support services and staff needed to meet needs of students affected by unemployment, large number of African American and Latino men in prison, loss of family structure. • Rights of children opting to remain in district schools are compromised.

24. Implications of Data • Although District I is the smallest board district, it has the 2nd largest number of independent charter schools. • This statistic has major implications for why parents choose charter schools over district schools. What is the district’s responsibility to ensure that these schools are adequately supported and competitive in parents’ decisions? • District schools in many District I schools are becoming “default” schools rather than schools parents choose. • African American parents (whose children are in the schools cited in these data) are disproportionately choosing charter schools, implying that district schools are not meeting their children’s needs.

25. Implications of Data • Conditions in these schools have major implications for distribution of LCFF and LCAP funding to insure that district schools are competitive with charter schools and capable of providing equitable opportunities for all students to learn and thrive in existing district schools.

26. One Sample School • Drastic reduction in enrollment • Reduction in ADA • Reduction in staff support • Single administrator • 23 % special education with a high concentration of Emotionally Disturbed students with no psychologist • Multiple discipline problems without support services for the Emotionally Disturbed students • Without focused resources, this school will fail.

27. Addressing Real Issues: Language • Both African American and Latino students in District I are in need of explicit instruction that enables them to acquire Standardized/Academic English, which is the language of classroom discourse and texts. • Students cannot be literate in a language they have not acquired. • Without proficiency in Standardized/Academic English these students have limited access to the curriculum, and we will continue to see test scores that show huge disparities. • The same language issues apply to many Asian American students who may excel in high school, but who struggle with the rigorous writing demands of college.

28. Addressing the Real Issues: Language • Today, the U.S. Department of Education notes, 80 percent of students with limited English proficiency are born and raised in this country; four out of five are U.S. citizens. This information becomes troubling in light of other studies that suggest many of these students are improving slowly, if at all.

29. Addressing the Real Issues: Language • The California ELD Standards provide a continuum of students’ levels of English Language proficiency. • The descriptors for these levels are applicable to all students, who are located at some point on a continuum of English Language proficiency.

30. Addressing the Real Issues: Parent Concerns • There is a lack of a formal “voice” to the District on the academic needs of African American students. • Limited access to LCFF and LCAP information compared to ELL Advisory Councils (DELAC); • Given the academic performance of African American students in LAUSD, African American parents need equitable access to information that will enable them to participate in decision making and participation in their children’s education. • A precedent for African American Parent Councils exists: including Pasadena Unified School District; San Bernardino City Unified School District, Lynwood Unified School District, Moreno Valley Unified School District. (See attached documents)

31. Addressing the Real Issues: Parents • School districts must make deliberate and bold efforts to include parents and forge ways for them to be involved in their children’s education to avoid reproducing a social order that continues to put these populations at risk. • District must create systemic structures that include, rather than exclude parents.

32. Addressing the Real Issues: Restoration of Losses • Restoring stability means making up for the effects of years of instability caused by inequitable formulas for school changes. • Disproportionate number of Rif’d teachers in some neighborhoods (zip codes) • Instability in experienced and culturally competent administrators and teachers • Reduction of funds caused by state funding shortages and by declining enrollment • Reduction of teaching and support staff • Reduction counseling and mental health staff to support populations experiencing the greatest effects of poverty and systemic racism

33. Recommendations • RECOMMENDATIONS • Create a protected base-level infrastructure index in schools with predominantly African American and Latino student populations to eradicate history of inadequacies in these schools • Intensive training on culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy as a means to prevent many discipline problems and reduce suspensions. • Priority hiring in schools most affected by budget reductions. • Protect schools from disproportionate reductions in staff. • Ensure adequate psycho-social support for students manifesting effects of poverty and unemployment, violence, residence in foster care, etc. that are effects of long-term discrimination against people of color. • Train and select a pool of the most experienced and informed principals with skills in instructional and operational leadership, as well as cultural competency. • Engage in intensive outreach to engage parents of African American and Latino students as partners in their children’s education. • Intensive professional development in promoting Standardized/Academic English

34. Recommendations • RECOMMENDATIONS • Devote LCFF resources to supporting and implementing professional development to teachers to implement explicit instruction in Standardized/Academic English in all schools with more than 10 % African American and/or Latino populations. • Use LCFF resources to strengthen elementary school mathematics where students’ misperceptions and weak conceptualization of mathematics begin. • Create an African American Parent Council in District I and other districts.