L.A. District Faces Mounting Pressure Over High Schools

After nearly eight months on the job, Superintendent David L. Brewer III has rolled out his strategy for improving student achievement in the 708,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District. Three new, reform-minded members also have been sworn in on the school board.

But so far, the momentum for improving high schools in the nation’s second-largest district has been coming from outsiders, centering largely on the fate of one troubled campus—Locke Senior High School in Watts.

Earlier this week, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $7.8 million grant to help one of the city’s most successful charter school operators open small high schools in Watts, which would be alternatives to Locke. Green Dot Public Schools, already preparing to open two new charter high schools there this fall, will now expand its portfolio in that neighborhood to 10 schools within the next year, said Steve Barr, Green Dot’s founder and chief executive officer.