In an on-going series, I have been looking at the neighborhoods highlighted by Great Public Schools Now (GPSN). GPSN is mostly funded by Eli Broad, and I have asked the question: Who deserves Eli Broads money? I call it “Game of Broads”, for when you play the game of broads, you win or you die. There is no middle ground. I know that sounds extreme, but many have framed GPSN’s plan as an existential struggle. UTLA argues that the GPSN plan would drive down enrollment at certain schools, essentially killing them.
Today, I am going to take a look at Westlake Pico-Union area. I chose this because I think the boundaries are pretty specific – it is essentially the triangle created by the 101 freeway, the 110 freeway and Hoover/Virgil.
By my count (and I may have forgotten some) there are 18 high schools in this area. 5 of them are alternative or continuation schools (including the amazing New Village Girls Academy). Also, two of the schools (Camino Nuevo Charter High and Larchmont Charter) did not have 12th graders in 2014-15, so they cannot be accurately included in the data. That leaves 11 high schools for students to choose from.
To evaluate the high schools, I am going to use 6 measures – CAASPP English and Math data, Graduation Rates, Dropout Rates, English Learner Reclassification and UC Acceptance Rates. Weighting them all equally and using a median deviation method, we can see one school stands above the rest.
Downtown Magnets, a magnet site with 4 separate programs but one central operation, almost triples the scores of the next closest school. Over and over, they are the best or the second best school in the area – 88% met or exceed in english, 57% meet or exceed in math, 27% are accepted to UCs, and they reclassified 48% of their English learners. They have a worse graduation and dropout rate than their charter competitors, but it is very high compared to the rest of LAUSD schools.
I have been hearing quite a bit of positive clamor about this school for a while. One of their teachers was a finalist for national teacher of the year, they are featured in a GPSN video, and they are one of the 14 LAUSD schools to make the top 500 of US News and World Report’s National High School Rankings.
Also doing well are three charters: Central Value, Camino Nuevo High #2 and Alliance College Ready #16. Conversely, Belmont Teacher Prep (a LAUSD school) is constantly the worst school in the area, and LA Academy of Arts and Enterprise (a charter) hasn’t performed well either.
What this shows is that there is a lot of validity to the GPSN narrative – there are major areas of LA where the only strong schools are charters or magnets. But it also raises the question of replication – Downtown Business is a magnet, what would replicating it look like? Camino Nuevo #2 is doing well, but their other high school isn’t so hot (0% met or exceeded in math). And Central City Value’s sister schools don’t have nearly the same level of excellent data either. Replication may sound like a good idea, but it is much harder in practice.