The Advancement Project, the Los Angeles-based civil rights and advocacy organization, has come up with what it calls a “student need index” to identify the schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District with the greatest needs.
The organization, partnering with the Community Coalition and InnerCity Struggle, argues that most of the additional funds the district will receive from the state based on its enrollments of low income students, English learners and foster children should be targeted toward 242 schools its index shows have the highest needs. These schools are heavily concentrated in southern and eastern Los Angeles, as well as in the the Pacoima area in the San Fernando Valley, as this map shows.
The publication of the index coincided with the release of the draft Local Control and Accountability Plan by Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy on Tuesday. (Go here for an EdSource report on the release of the draft plan.)
Because it is by far the state’s largest district, with nearly 1,000 schools, the district is being closely watched by policy makers and key education constituencies to see how the state’s new funding formula will be implemented. The district will receive a projected $837 million in additional grants based on the number of low-income students, English learners and foster children enrolled in the district.
“We understand and applaud the governor’s framework (for school financing) to focus on the highest-needs students,” said John Kim, the Advancement Project’s managing co-director. But he said there are “large swaths of disparities between the highest- and lowest-needs schools.” The index, he said, offers a way for the district to prioritize how and where it spends state education funds.
The index is based on a dozen different factors. These include 3rd and 8th grade test scores, high school dropout rates, access to child care, the presence of crime-prevention services, and a number of health factors, such as gun injuries in the neighborhoods where students live, student fitness levels, and asthma rates.
The coalition of organizations has also drawn up a what it calls an “equity framework” for implementation of the Local Control and Accountability Plan. The detailed six-page document includes recommendations such as having student counselors specifically focused on English learners, along with a wide range of other support services for the hundreds of thousands of children who fall into this category.
It also recommends a panoply of health services, including psychiatric social workers and counselors in schools with the highest number of foster youth, and building new health centers in high-needs schools that lack them.
Kim said that a student needs index would be helpful to all school districts, but that each district would need to build its own based on its own unique characteristics.
Kim wouldn’t say exactly how much of the additional funds he felt should be targeted at the the schools with the highest need. “There will in the end be a balance between district-wide programs and targeted needs,” he said. “It just has to be the right balance.”
DATA INCLUDED IN THE STUDENT NEEDS INDEX
| Category | Indicator |
Year |
Geography | Source |
| Academic Achievement | Percent of 8th grade students scored basic, below basic, or far below basic in CST ELA exam. |
2013 |
School | CDE |
| Academic Achievement | Percent of 3rd grade students scored basic, below basic, or far below basic in CST ELA exam. |
2013 |
School | CDE |
| Academic Achievement | Number of high school dropouts |
2011-2012 |
School | CDE |
| Early Childhood Education | Number of children without licensed childcare seats per 10,000 children (0-5) |
2012 |
ZIP code | Community Care Licensing Division |
| Foster Care | Number of children entering foster care per 10,000 youth |
2012 |
ZIP code | Center for Social Services Research |
| English Learners | Number of English Learner students |
2012-2013 |
School | CDE |
| Students in Poverty | Unduplicated number of students qualified for FRPM (foster care) |
2012-2013 |
School | CDE |
| Enrollment | Number of enrolled students |
2012-2013 |
School | CDE |
| Exposure to violence | Number of nonfatal gun injuries per 10,000 persons |
2012 |
ZIP code | Office of Statewide Health Planning & Dev. |
| Resources for Youth Crime Prevention | Number of nonprofit organizations related to youth crime prevention per 10,000 youth |
2010 |
ZIP code | IRS |
| Restorative Justice | Number of suspensions and expulsions |
2010-2011 |
School | CDE |
| Health Outcomes | Asthma Hospitalization Rate per 10,000 children under 18 |
2010 |
ZIP code | Office of Statewide Health Planning & Dev. |
| Physical Health and Activity | Percentage of students who are in Health Fitness Zone in two or less categories |
2012-2013 |
School | LAUSD |
Source: The Advancement Project
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