Initiatives

L.A. Compact

Juana Hernandez

Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce

Role: Backbone, Working Group

Dylan Crary

Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce

Role: Backbone

Carrie Lemmon

Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce

Role: Backbone

Emily Blake

Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce

Role: Project Page Administrator

See All

About this Initiative

Year Started:

2008

Initiative stage:

Implementing and Sustaining Impact

Location:

Los Angeles, California, United States of America (the), Far West (AK, CA, HI, NV, OR, WA)

Initiative Purpose and Goals:

The L.A. Compact is a bold commitment by Los Angeles leaders from the education, business, government, labor and nonprofit sectors to transform education outcomes from cradle to career, ensuring that today’s youth have the skills necessary to succeed in a 21st century global workforce. The creation of the L.A. Compact in 2008 stemmed from a shared belief that no single program or institution can singlehandedly solve the complex, large scale, education and workforce readiness challenges facing our region. Improving student outcomes at scale requires collective impact – the commitment to solve complex social problems by a group of actors from different sectors.

The L.A. Compact signatories commit to regularly measuring their progress in pursuit of three systemic goals: 1) all students graduate from high school, 2) all students have access to and are prepared for success in college and 3) all students have access to pathways to sustainable jobs and careers.

Initiative website:

http://www.LACompact.org

Collective Impact Elements in Place

Common Agenda

Continuous Communication

Shared Measurement

Backbone Support

Mutually Reinforcing Activities

Backbone Support

Organizations serving in the Backbone Role

UNITE-LA, a nonprofit affiliate of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, serves as the primary convener of the L.A. Compact to help partner agencies leverage resources, align services, improve policies and build bridges between siloed systems to improve outcomes for the youth of L.A. from cradle to career. Constellation conveners include Families in Schools, First 5 LA, The Alliance for Children's Rights, and The Los Angeles City Education and Workforce Development Department.

Backbone structure

The L.A. Compact is structured as a multi-convener approach to collective impact and cradle to career educational systems change. While UNITE-LA is the primary convener, the L.A. Compact honors the expertise of partners through a constellation model of convener leadership. Constellation conveners include Families in Schools, First 5 LA, the Alliance for Children's Rights, and the Los Angeles City Education and Workforce Development Department.

Additionally, the Stewardship Group is tasked with serving as stewards of the L.A. Compact's collective vision and is comprised of senior staff representing the L.A. Compact signers.

Measures of Success

Compact partners are committed to mutual accountability for regional success and the use of data for continual improvement. UNITE-LA, the primary convener of the L.A. Compact, works collaboratively with Compact partners to track regional education and workforce data in order to better understand challenges and opportunities in increasing access and equity.

The L.A. Compact released a 2011 Measures Report to report a baseline on cradle-to-career indicators for L.A. youth and a 2014 Measures Report tracking progress on youth education and workforce success. In 2016, we will release a more in-depth Measures Report, tracking further progress on key indicators of youth achievement. We conduct comparisons by racial/ethnic group and nested geographic areas in order to identify areas of needed improvement and focus efforts on narrowing equity gaps for disadvantaged minority and low-income communities.

UNITE-LA knows that what gets measured matters. By showcasing data across early childhood, K-12, higher education and workforce sectors, our Measures Reports seek to promote a comprehensive understanding of how our communities are faring and what areas need concerted, collaborative attention by the educational, workforce, civic, government, and nonprofit organizations that comprise the L.A. Compact.

In 2014, UNITE-LA added a new Director of Research and Evaluation position to our team to ensure greater rigor in our tracking of measurable outcomes, continuous improvement, and third party evaluations. The Director leads our research and evaluation efforts on both direct service delivery and systems change and is leading both the 2016 Measures Report and the newly-established, cross-sector Data Workgroup that will pursue optimal, available indicators of progress. The L.A. Compact Data Workgroup’s efforts will facilitate and promote the institutionalization of data-driven decision making and a culture of continuous improvement targeted at improved economic mobility for L.A.’s low-income communities.

Initiative Partners and Governance

Contributing organizations

The Compact signing partners include the L.A. Chamber, L.A. Mayor Garcetti, LAUSD, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors and the Office of Education, United Way, First 5 LA, the L.A. County Federation of Labor, Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, and 12 higher education institutions. Constellation conveners include Families in Schools, First 5 LA, The Alliance for Children's Rights, and The Los Angeles City Education and Workforce Development Department.

Sectors Engaged

Nonprofit

Philanthropic Funders

Public Sector

Business Sector

Broader Community/People with Lived Experience

Initiative governance

The L.A. Compact’s robust governance structure—including signers (CEO-level commitment), a Stewardship Group (senior officials), and collaboratives & workgroups that engage community partners – provides staff with the ability to move quickly from a grass-level action plan to large institutional buy-in.

L.A. Compact workgroups inlcude:

Stewardship Group | Established: 2008 | Convened by: UNITE-LA

The L.A. Compact Stewardship Group is comprised of senior staff and deputies representing the L.A. Compact signers. Members serve as stewards of the larger community interest and serve the L.A. Compact’s broader collective vision.

LA Workforce Systems Collaborative | Established: 2007 | Convened by: UNITE-LA

The Los Angeles Workforce Systems Collaborative is a multi-stakeholder collaboration comprised of the region’s education, government, workforce development, labor, business, and community leaders committed to developing a robust and comprehensive economic and workforce development system to meet the employment and educational needs of our region’s low income and underserved communities. The collaborative leverages the collective and individual assets of these systemic partners to create pathways to high demand, high growth industries, and sustainable careers to ensure there is shared responsibility and commitment for the economic competitiveness of the region.

The The L.A. Performance Partnership Pilot for Disconnected Youth (LA P3) | Established: 2014 | convened by: L.A. City Education & Workforce Development Department Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth is a federal designation that offers a unique opportunity to test innovative, cost-effective, and outcome-focused strategies for improving results for disconnected youth. Los Angeles was selected as a pilot site in 2014 to achieve significant improvements for disconnected youth in educational, employment, and other key outcomes in exchange for this new flexibility. For P3, statute defines disconnected youth as individuals between the ages of 14 and 24 who are low income and either homeless, in foster care, involved in the juvenile justice system, unemployed, or not enrolled in or at risk of dropping out of an educational institution. LA P3 works collaboratively to advance the goal of streamlining services across the vast numbers of agencies supporting out of school and out of work young people ages 16 to 24.
Los Angeles Health Sector Collaborative | Established: 2009 | Convened by: UNITE-LA The L.A. Health Sector Collaborative is an innovative collaboration to create and strengthen healthcare pathways by convening health care employers, public post-secondary, and workforce development partners to train healthcare workers for high-demand occupations in the L.A. region.

Joint Advocacy Workgroup | Established: 2008 | Convened by: UNITE-LA

The L.A. Compact Joint Advocacy Workgroup brings together cross-sector government relations staff to advocate on state and federal policy issues that impact young people from cradle to career in the LA region.

Institutions of Higher Education Collaborative | Established: 2008 | Convened by: UNITE-LA

The Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) Collaborative represents a consortium of 12 independent, Los Angeles area-based universities, colleges and community colleges that have joined together to support the L.A. Compact and to advance cross-system strategies to increase student success from cradle to career.

LA Educator Pathways Partnership | Established: 2010 | Convened by: UNITE-LA, LAUSD, IHE Collaborative The Los Angeles Educator Pathways Partnership is a unique collaboration between the L.A. Compact, its Institutions of Higher Education Collaborative, other higher education institutions, and the Los Angeles Unified School District. The partners share a common goal of supporting all students in LAUSD to graduate from high school prepared to succeed in college and careers. To that end, the parties have agreed to work together to investigate best practices and drive continuous improvement in teacher preparation programs to enhance student learning in LAUSD.
Student Success Workgroup | Developing | Convened by: UNITE-LA Lumina Foundation has selected Los Angeles to participate in its Community Partnership for Attainment cohort to focus on increasing postsecondary access and success in the Los Angeles region by re-launching the Compact’s Institutions of Higher Education Collaborative Student Success Workgroup, initially convened in 2012. When reconvened, the group will focus on sharing best practices that promote college student success, coordinating efforts to increase college completion rates in the Los Angeles region, identifying policies and practices that limit student success and act as barriers to college completion, and addressing pipeline issues that exist as students transition from one institution or system to another.

Los Angeles Regional STEM Hub | Established: 2013 | Convened by: UNITE-LA

The L.A. Regional STEM Hub seeks to expand student access to high-quality STEM education and provide pathways for STEM workforce and skills development. The Hub serves 80 districts with 700,000 students in Los Angeles County. The L.A. Regional STEM Hub believes the success of its students will be a key driver in the region's future economy. By engaging our youth in STEM careers and encouraging critical thinking, scientific discovery and collaboration, we prepare young people to succeed in the 21st century workplace.

LA Campaign for Grade Level Reading | Established: 2013 | Convened by: Families in Schools

The Los Angeles Campaign for Grade-Level Reading seeks to improve the number of low-income students of color who are reading at grade level by the end of 3rd grade and are on track to succeed academically. The Campaign advances collaborative strategies to impact three primary drivers of 3rd grade reading proficiency: school attendance, summer learning, and school readiness.

School Readiness Workgroup: | Established: 2015 | Convened by: First 5 LA The SRW seeks to affect third grade reading proficiency by increasing the number of children in L.A. County that enter kindergarten ready for school. The workgroup has adopted three priorities: a common Kindergarten Readiness Assessment for L.A. County, increasing the number of ECE sites participating in the Quality Rating and Improvement System, and engaging families in school readiness.

LA Opportunity Youth Collaborative | Established: 2013 | Convened by: Alliance for Children’s Rights

The LA Opportunity Youth Collaborative (LA-OYC) leverages the collective cross-sector and community-based leadership and investments of the Los Angeles region to improve pathways to education and employment for transition-age foster youth (TAY), ages 16-24. By coordinating services, leveraging community resources, aligning strategies and improving policies, LA-OYC partners break down siloed systems and establish sustainable reforms to improve three outcomes for TAY in LA County: 1) High school graduation and GED attainment; 2) Postsecondary enrollment and credential completion; and 3) Workforce readiness and gainful employment.

LA Compact Data Workgroup | Established: 2015 | Convened by: UNITE-LA

The Data Workgroup will identify optimal, available progress and outcome measures for high school graduation and college- and career-readiness for LA youth, with the goal of establishing a Compact Measures Dashboard to promote continuous improvement.

Business Collaborative | Established: 2013 | Convened by: UNITE-LA

The L.A. Compact Business Collaborative seeks to bring together civic engagement and philanthropic leaders from L.A. area businesses to share best practices in business-education partnerships and to support regional efforts to connect student learning with career preparation.

Los Angeles School Development Institute (LASDI) | 2009-2014 | Convened by: UTLA, AALA, LAUSD, & UNITE-LA

The mission of the Los Angeles School Development Institute (LASDI) is to assist and support collaborative teams of teachers, principals, parents, community members, students and district leadership who are dedicated to examining their practice and organically reforming the culture and instructional delivery models at their school site. LASDI offers personalized and differentiated services to internal school teams participating in the Public School Choice initiative; LASDI helps school teams develop high-quality turnaround proposals and then works with schools to implement key strategies in their plans in order to improve student achievement.

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