‘I Can Now Have Hope . . .’ : Private Grant Turns Lackluster School in Cudahy Into Model

A grand education experiment was formally launched Tuesday at Elizabeth Street School in the tiny working class city of Cudahy, where teachers, parents and staff have received a $3.5-million private grant to turn their urban school into a national model for scholastic reform.

Since receiving one of nine coveted national grants from a business-funded organization called the New American School Development Corp., Elizabeth Street School has been transformed from a lackluster elementary campus into bustling clusters of classrooms where students carry out assignments on state-of-the-art computers and video equipment and teachers strive to present classes in relevant themes, such as civil rights.

The staff has been involved in intense year-round training courses to update their own teaching and computer skills. The school, which has been converted to a kindergarten through 12th grade campus to better track student progress, also serves as a community link for health and social services. The entire school community--parents, teacher, administrators--are in the midst of creating a shared decision-making council.

“This learning center has showed me that there is hope for an American society that believes enough in teachers to invest in their professional growth,” said eighth-grade English teacher Edwardo Munoz. “Every day I have responsibility for a hundred 13 and 14 year olds. I can now have hope for them.”

As the school unfolds its plan to graduate students “who meet world class standards of scholarship and technology use,” local educators intend to hold the school up as an example of how targeted resources and collaboration among teachers and administrators can prepare urban youths for the working world.

The Elizabeth Street School model will be expanded later this year to another Los Angeles Unified School District campus, Foshay Middle School in South-Central Los Angeles. The projects have been dubbed the Los Angeles Learning Centers. The Los Angeles Educational Partnership, a business-backed education reform group, United Teachers-Los Angeles and the school district have worked together to create the plan.

The curriculum will emphasize in-depth, thematic teaching that cuts across various subjects and attempts to provide real-world applications of the lessons.

On Wednesday, for instance, a group of eighth-graders were assigned to produce a video presentation of the opening ceremony. While they had fun running the camera, their English teacher will be closely monitoring the written text and critiquing their spoken language skills.

For now, these two schools have resources that other cash-crimped Los Angeles campuses can only dream of.

Throughout the giant school district, successful pilots have been launched for programs ranging from bilingual education to science instruction, but typically the models are not replicated at other schools because funding quickly dries up.

“This will help show how reform can be done,” said Supt. Sid Thompson. “But other schools can’t just go back and do it without resources.”

The Learning Center grant has enabled the schools to spend nearly $1.3 million for computers so that students have laser disks and other components to make classroom lessons come alive on screen. About $585,000 has been spent on teacher training so that classrooms can change from static lecture halls into working teams of students and teachers.

While the infusion of money was needed to radically alter school operations, the idea behind the project is to set up a structure that can be self-supporting and incorporated in the schools’ normal budget when the grant money runs out.

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The schools are in the process of setting up rigorous student assessment plans so that performance can be continually monitored.

Thompson said a critical component for district-wide school reform will be finding resources for teacher training so that instructors can learn new ways to meet the needs of the city’s diverse student population, many of whom are poor and speak little English. Computers, high-tech equipment and challenging lesson plans are useless unless teachers understand how it all works in the classroom.

The district has currently adopted its own blueprint for reform called LEARN, which gives schools the freedom to control their own budgets and devise their own education programs. Thompson said the district must now find $4 to $6 million to pay for staff training to launch the second phase of plan this spring.

Elizabeth Street School Principal John Kershaw said that their gates will be open to educators and parents to evaluate components of their school programs for use at other campuses.

“It’s not realistic to think every school can get this kind of money,” Kershaw said. “But as local schools get control of their own money, they can begin to use components of our plan.”