ABOUT THIS STUDY SITE

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest school district in the nation, is plagued not only by insufficient educational resources, but also by vast disparities in how those resources are allocated. Community Coalition, an organizing group based in South Los Angeles — the site of some of the most overcrowded and lowest-performing schools in the city — has confronted these realities with organized political action.

In response to students’ concerns that their schools were not preparing them for college, Community Coalition launched a campaign in 2000 to increase student access to college preparatory coursework. Youth-led organizing and a broad-based citywide coalition co-convened by Community Coalition resulted in the district’s adoption of a mandatory college preparatory curriculum for all its high schools. In addition to transforming the curriculum of a large urban school district, community organizing built new forms of parent, youth, and community power in one of the most economically and socially marginalized communities in the nation.