Crenshaw High School

Two years ago, civic leaders in south Los Angeles started an integrated social service program for improving literacy and job-career readiness in an impoverished neighborhood of about 10,000 people.

Today, program sponsors are looking to close a key gap in coverage – a lack of broadband and internet access that not only inhibits adults getting and retaining good jobs but also presents big educational challenges to the area’s youth.

“There’s a technology access gap that continues to persist today in urban communities across America,” said Blair Taylor, president of the L.A. Urban League, which launched the Neighborhoods@Work program in 2006. “We are convinced that a large part of the income disparity and educational issues can be bridged, if we are able to get timely information to people in low-income communities,” he said.

Blair H. Taylor, President & CEO of the Los Angeles Urban League, testified at September 9, 2008 hearing held by the National Commission on Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. Mr. Taylor’s testimony was as follows:

Good morning. Thank you to the Commission for allowing this important testimony to occur.

Many of the panelists have described elements of the housing crisis in vivid detail. The hope is to use this brief time with you to specifically focus on the impact of this crisis on urban communities, and also to pose possible solutions.

We will use a sample neighborhood in South Los Angeles as a proxy for inner city LA. The neighborhood I will be referencing, known as Park Mesa Heights in South Los Angeles is located in the 90043 zip code. Up front note that it is not the most blighted urban community in this city, but then again, it is clearly very far from the top. It faces a major crisis in homeownership, but also major issues in health care access, education/school performance, and violent crime. I want us to focus on this neighborhood because in many ways it both exemplifies the problems we face and also offers a roadmap for solutions.

This past week the teachers and parents of Crenshaw High voted in favor of the school entering the Innovation Division of Los Angeles Unified School District LAUSD’s effort to place select schools on a pathway toward localized governance and control.

The chorus for change was overwhelming: More than 80 percent of all the teachers and faculty at Crenshaw High voted for change, and more than 94 percent of the voting parents did so as well.

The students of Crenshaw High School held a symbolic vote regarding the move to the Innovation Division. Ninety percent voted in favor of the move. In spite of this powerful showing of stakeholder support, there are some who are firmly entrenched in the status quo and are vigorously resisting forces of positive change. They do so without the articulation of clear alternatives and fail to recognize that their participation in improving our schools is welcomed and necessary.

The South Los Angeles community, and the entire city of Los Angeles, must ensure that naysayers cannot sabotage the iDivision process in its early stages. We can best do that by vigilantly upholding the collective mandate for change at Crenshaw now.

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent of Schools David L. Brewer III and Board President Mónica García will be joined by President and CEO of Los Angeles Urban League Blair Taylor, President and CEO of the Tom and Ethel Bradley Foundation Greg Franks, and others to announce that the Crenshaw High School (CHS) community and staff have voted to enter into the LAUSD's Innovation Division (iDivision) with local partners, L. A. Urban League, the Bradley Foundation, and the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education. With the unofficial count done, more than 93% of eligible faculty and teachers voted and of that, 80% voted for the LAUSD iDivision change. Ninety percent of voting parents also supported the iDivision change. In a symbolic vote last week, Crenshaw High School students also voted in favor to join the iDivision by a margin of nearly 90%.