Los Angeles Unified has overhauled its industry-leading efforts to improve academic outcomes for black students after conservative Virginia activists filed a civil rights complaint, accusing the program of using race as an admissions criterion.
The district’s $120 million Black Student Achievement Plan had a clear goal: improve the academic performance of Black students, who lag behind other groups on reading and math assessments, provide additional teachers to students and additional training for their teachers.
The program has now come into question after Arlington-based Parents Defending Education filed a civil rights complaint arguing that it violates federal law by using race “solely” as an admissions criterion, prompting the district to change its policy.
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“Essentially, the Black Student Achievement Plan and its benefits are open to some students but not others – and that exclusion is based solely on an individual’s race,” the group’s complaint said.
In response, LAUSD said it no longer uses race as a factor in choosing which schools participate. But the future of the program remains murky despite the changes, as it could still be open to future legal challenges.
Still, it’s a dramatic turn of events for LAUSD’s signature Black initiative, and it shows the powerful influence that out-of-town interests can have on local policy.
LASUD officials said the district will still provide BSAP with the same resources as previous years and the programs will remain the same; and all students – not just black students – are eligible for the aid.
The five-year-old BSAP seemed to be heading for success by targeting black children.
With broad support from LA Unified administrators, teachers and families, the program deployed counselors and social workers to about 50 schools, which together enrolled about a third of the district’s black students.
And this year, the district’s black students made gains on math and reading tests that were greater than those of other student groups. Once again this year, the district’s black students scored better than black students across the state on the annual exams.
Since PDE filed its complaint, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said LA Unified “was able to reformat the program without sacrificing impact.”
“Our solution is one that preserves the funding, the concentration of attention and resources on the same students and the same schools,” he said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
Representatives for the PDE, which has filed more civil rights complaints against at least 10 other school districts across the country, did not respond to requests for comment.
A website for the nonprofit says it is a “national grassroots organization committed to reclaiming our schools from activists who promote harmful agendas,” including critical race theory and restorative justice.
PDE’s board includes Edward Blum, the conservative litigator who previously founded an organization that won a Supreme Court ruling against Harvard University in 2023 to ban affirmative action in college admissions.
In its complaint to the federal Office for Civil Rights, PDE argued that the BSAP violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by using race to decide which students receive additional educational services.
After LA Unified dropped race as an official factor in those decisions, OCR dismissed the group’s complaint, setting off a potential legal battle. But PDE could revive its complaint.
The district’s strategy has drawn the attention of the teachers union, activists and students who protested an Oct. 22 board meeting. An online letter campaign urges LA Unified to “restore black student population as a criterion for BSAP school assignment.”
Without a race to determine which schools participate in the BSAP, University of Southern California education professor Julie Slayton said LAUSD will have to use other factors when deciding how to distribute additional resources to students.
“They will take away the language of ‘black,’” Slayton said. “But it doesn’t have to profoundly change the way they think about the distribution of these resources and the schools that will receive them.”
