2006 Campus-Community Partnerships
Belmont Education Collaborative/UCLA Partnership
for
New High School Options in LAUSD
| Awardee: | Jeannie Oakes, Professor
and Director UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA) |
| Partner: | Alliance for a Better Community |
Abstract:
For the past year, UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (IDEA) and Center X have participated in the Belmont Education Collaborative -- a broad-based coalition of leaders from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), Belmont High School, and community-based groups to create new high school options in Pico Union. This collaborative is currently in discussion with the Mayor's office and others to put in motion a reform plan -- the Belmont Zone of Choice -- based on new policy conditions for high school reform.
Working within this context, the proposed two-year project would study the feasibility of creating a UCLA-assisted high school. Responding to the UC-wide press for university-assisted high schools (e.g., UCSD's Preuss School and UCB's Cal Prep), this project would allow a team of UCLA faculty to partner with Belmont educators and civic leaders in a systematic study of the administrative and policy conditions needed to create and sustain a UCLA-assisted high school within LAUSD's Local District 4. By the end of year one, the study team would decide whether to proceed with a year-long school design phase and a Fall 2008 school opening. If the school is deemed infeasible, the team would spend year two applying what it has learned to build the capacity of other new school design teams within the Zone.
