History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
The Latest from IDEA
A newsfeed on the most current research, news, and events at IDEA.
July 28-29: Youth Council to meet key leaders in Sacramento
A group of Los Angeles-area high school students began traveling to Sacramento today to meet with state legislators, politicians and educators as part of an ongoing research project.
Thirty-three students from IDEA's Council of Youth Research will interview state Superintendent Jack O'Connell, Kathryn Radtkey-Gaither, state education undersecretary, and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. They will also meet with legislators and their staff. The students will return to Los Angeles Thursday afternoon.
Data from the trip will be added to the student research project on the state of education in California. The results of their findings will be presented Aug. 6 at Los Angeles City Hall, 200 N. Spring St.
The Council of Youth Research has been meeting since early July, taking courses at UCLA in graduate-level research methodologies and conducting surveys and interviews of their peers, teachers, administrators and community leaders. The council's summer team is composed of recent graduates and current students from Crenshaw, Locke, Manual Arts, Roosevelt and Wilson high schools.
For more information on council's trip, contact Claudia Bustamante at bustamante@gseis.ucla.edu or 310-267-4408.
IDEA recommended summer reading
Several leading civil rights groups, including the NAACP, released a document Monday criticizing parts of the Obama administration's educational reforms as harmful to low-income and minority students. They specifically cite the competitive nature of Race to the Top, proposals that don't consider challenges in low-income communities and ineffective turnaround policies.
Calling CA high schoolers to lend voice
Youth research council created online survey to gauge student opinion statewide.
July 21: HS students interview state legislators
Summer seminar students learning graduate-level research tools will interview state legislators this week as part of their research project with IDEA's Council of Youth Research.
The local high school students and recent graduates will speak with Assemblyman Mike Davis, D-Los Angeles, today. On Friday, they will speak with the district directors for both Assemblyman Isadore Hall, III, D-Compton, and state Senator Curren Price, D-Los Angeles.
The topic of the summer seminar are the changes seen and unseen since the 2004 settlement of Williams v. California. The Williams case, which was filed 10 years ago, was a class action suit on behalf of the state's schoolchildren for equal access to school resources, safe and secure campuses and qualified teachers.
July 18: Parcel tax fairness again makes headlines
IDEA Director John Rogers was quoted in yet another news article about the propensity for school districts to turn towards parcel taxes as a means of recovering funds they have lost from the state.
The Diego Union-Tribune reported that between 2001 and 2009, 132 districts placed parcel tax measures on the ballot and 83 received the needed two-thirds vote to pass them. Most were smaller districts in affluent neighborhoods. Last month, Los Angeles Unified failed to pass a $100 annual parcel tax that would have generated about $92.5 million annually over four years for the arts, class size reduction and maintenance.
"The pain of budget cuts is felt across the state and across income levels," Rogers was quoted. "But students will get a different level of education depending on where they live and whether it is in a community that can afford to pass a parcel tax."
The 131,000-student San Diego Unified School District is seeking to pass a five-year parcel tax that would raise $50 million annually.
Read full story here.
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