Southwest grants target African Americans
Millions in grants geared toward student success
Los Angeles Southwest College (LASC) was recently awarded two grants from the federal Department of Education geared toward encouraging academic success among African American students.
The first grant will fund a five-year program that will allow LASC to improve the educational outcomes of Black students at the school through the Freshman Experience Project. The effort will help approximately 125 incoming freshmen each year with academics and achieve success.
The second grant will be used to expand the Passage Program, which will help 200 incoming and current African American male students. This grant will fund a number of programs including: extended orientation, which helps students obtain a better understanding of the school; rites of passage events which introduce young men to the program; creation of learning communities that help students meet each other; linked courses which are classes that are connected and professors work together to build curriculum.
“You can plop me down anywhere in this 4-million-person metropolis, and I have a personal and intense connection,” Councilman Eric M. Garcetti said.
Taken on its face, the statement seems brash, or just so much braggadocio. At the very least, it sounds like political hyperbole, but the statement is pretty well documented.
He is of Russian-Jewish descent on his mother’s side and Mexican-Italian descent on his father’s side. But there are also Irish genes from a great-great grandfather.
Los Angeles Southwest College (LASC) looks partially like an experimental yard for bomb explosions and a thriving, healthy and renovated school in the modern age. In this convoluted scenario, what is striking, however, is that no work seems to be getting done amid the stripped buildings, barricaded web netting and cracked concrete.
The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday gave final approval to changes in the truancy law that, pending approval by the mayor, would delay fines until a third offense and dramatically reduce the base fine for skipping school from $250 to $20.
The plan, introduced by Councilman Tony Cardenas and supported by Councilman Bernard Parks, contains new penalty options for a first or second violation. Offenders would be able to either propose a plan for how to improve their attendance, perform community service, tutoring or mentoring, or attend an after-school program.
MONTGOMERY, Ala.—Though the Civil Rights Movement is one of the defining events of U.S. history, most states fail when it comes to teaching the movement to students, a first-of-its-kind study released by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has found.
As an assistant principal with 29 years of experience in South L.A. schools, John Alvarez knows the drill.
