News Update

Carvalho says replacing Primary Promise will do more for LAUSD for less money

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho defended changes to the Primary Promise intervention program, expanding its focus beyond helping struggling K-2 readers to reaching older students and training more teachers.

Carvalho detailed the plan at a Tuesday board meeting after facing criticism for dismantling the flagship initiative of his predecessor, Austin Beutner, earlier this year,  the Los Angeles Times reported. Board member Nick Melvoin said that the public could not be blamed for feeling “whiplash” over a program that was first lauded but later criticized.

Administrators explained that they are simultaneously expanding services and cutting costs. Notably, the revamped approach, called the Literacy and Numeracy Intervention Model, will reach older students instead of stopping at third grade. They also acknowledged that fewer elementary schools would have intervention services but that services to students of all ages would improve.

Officials set the cost of next year’s effort at about $100 million, compared with $134 million this year and about $200 million if Beutner’s plan to reach every elementary school with Primary Promise had been carried out. The new plan will rely on training classroom instructors in the same methods as tutors.

Carvalho said he had to find some way to cut costs but meet needs. The district has about 2,100 full-time positions, including those in Primary Promise, that will no longer be funded as pandemic relief funds expire. Officials said they can make the transition without layoffs but not without any cuts. Employees may have to shift to new jobs and new schools.

The funding problem is real, Carvalho said, as the Los Angeles Times reported: “Pulling the rabbit out of the hat will not work. The rabbit is dead, and the hat is small.”

However, proponents of Primary Promise, parents and teachers who extol its successes amid the state’s deepening literacy crisis, are fighting back against the cuts. More than 1,700 signed a petition in support of the program.

“The LAUSD has plenty of programs that don’t work, so we, a coalition of parents, teachers, staff and community members, are asking the board to stop Supt. Carvalho from unilaterally dismantling this program that does in fact work, in order to enact a lesser version,” the petition says.