Keeping the Promise of Change: Why California’s chronically underperforming schools need bold reform

According to a new report by The Education Trust—West, Keeping the Promise of Change, California has thrown more than $265 million over the last six years at its bottom five percent of Title I schools in a series of unproductive “reform” initiatives.  These reforms have skimmed the surface of school improvement, while producing minimal gains for the thousands of African-American and Latino students trapped in drop-out factories throughout the state.  Now these schools and other low performers are eligible for tens of millions in new school improvement funding from Washington, D.C.