LA’s BEST Deserves Better
LA’s BEST, the city’s respected after-school program in poor neighborhoods, provides fun, learning and skilled supervision for elementary school children until 6 p.m. every school day. It is a dream program for struggling working parents. And it is running out of money.
This effective effort deserves an infusion of public and private funds to not just sustain current activities but to expand. The annual budget now is $3.3 million and benefits 24 campuses; it would take $12.5 million to reach 100 of the 418 elementary campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
The program raises 25% of its funds privately. The rest is public money, now dwindling because Community Redevelopment Agency funds will dry up at the end of the fiscal year June 30.
More than baby-sitting, LA’s BEST provides enrichment, tutoring and recreation for 5,000 children. On Monday, the DreamWorks SKG movie studio announced that it will provide animation classes at four campuses.
Homework gets done during program hours. A 1995 UCLA analysis, which compared LA’s BEST participants with a control group of classmates who did not attend, found that participants showed “significantly greater motivation and enthusiasm for school.” The independent evaluation also documented gains for participants in all five subjects analyzed: math, science, social studies, reading and composition.
LA’s BEST represents an unusual partnership between the city, which provides funding, and the school district, which provides space, liability insurance and some services. Then-Mayor Tom Bradley founded it a decade ago and envisioned it spreading to every elementary campus. Mayor Richard Riordan, a strong supporter who served on the original board, promises to find replacement funds for the CRA money that will be lost, but that’s a far cry from the expansion that it deserves.
The city’s private philanthropists and its politicians should dig deep. LA’s BEST reinforces what students learn in the classroom and helps keep them safe and away from gangs. It belongs on every campus.
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