2004 Community Partnership Awards

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Building Youth Leadership for Quality Education in East Los Angeles

Abstract:

Youth Organizing Communities (YOC), the youth component of InnerCity Struggle (ICS), is working to improve the quality of education in East Los Angeles by engaging high school students in developing leadership skills to voice concerns, raise community awareness and promote pro-active solutions. Over the last three years, YOC has worked with 100 youth at Roosevelt and Garfield High Schools to enable the youth to identify problems in East Los Angeles public high schools and raise awareness among students, parents, teachers, and allies.

This funding support initiates a partnership with UCLA Professor Jeannie Oakes and the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA) to enhance ICS/YOC's capacity to conduct research, analyze and present data on learning opportunities. These skills of civic participation are critical for YOC members to build a case for local educational change in East Los Angeles.

This project aims to create engaged and informed youth who view themselves as agents for creating quality schools in East Los Angeles. This project will increase high school graduation rates and four-year college eligibility rates by enhancing YOC members' academic skills in the short term and building the capacity of their schools to provide high quality education in the long term.