LOS ANGELES—At an education forum held today by the UCLA Civil Rights Project (CRP), a new educational guide was unveiled that helps California schools, districts and teachers target the best ways to implement the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), so that it narrows the achievement gaps between California’s English Learners (ELs) and all other students.  Seizing the Opportunity, by CRP Co-director Patricia Gándara with Maria Estela Zárate, a faculty at CSU Fullerton, recommends research-based practices that innovate and reshape ways for addressing the educational needs of ELs.

The new guidance explains that funding under LCFF, which became law in 2013, should be “spent carefully on interventions that are supported by solid research.” In fact, the authors cull their recommendations from current research on English Learners and organize them according to the eight Local Control Accountability Plan priorities outlined in LCFF.

Those recommendations fall under the priorities of basic services, implementation of standards, parental involvement, pupil achievement and engagement, school climate, course access and other pupil outcomes.  The guidance offers “a menu of research-based options… that provide the best odds of making a significant difference for the education of EL students.”

Speakers from the LAUSD and Moreno Valley school boards, MALDEF, Californians Together and The Advancement Project gathered at the California Community Foundation in downtown Los Angeles and hailed the historic importance of the LCFF — as long as it is used as an agent of change for the students for whom it was intended.

CRP’s Gándara warned that, “California now has a chance to narrow longstanding achievement gaps, but we have to recognize that this opportunity can slip away if newly available LCFF funds are not spent carefully and directly on those students who generate them.” 

Educators can download the guidance here.