November 8, 2012
Teach For America alumna I'Asha Warfield is recognized as a 2013 California Teacher of the Year and chosen to represent the state in the National Teacher of the Year competition.
Get to Know KIPP LA Prep
In 2003, KIPP LA Prep was one of two KIPP network schools to open in Los Angeles. Today, the school serves 360 students in fifth through eighth grade. In 2008, Teach For America alumna Angella Martinez became the school leader of KIPP LA Prep. In the following year, the school’s Academic Performance Index score (API) grew by 101 points—the largest increase of any Los Angeles middle school that year. The school’s API score rose to a 917 in 2010, making it the highest-performing middle school in all of Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). KIPP LA Prep and its students have been widely recognized for their achievements and were featured in the documentary, Waiting For Superman.
After serving for four years as school leader, Angella is now broadening her impact as the Chief Academic Officer of KIPP LA. The network includes seven middle and elementary schools and hopes to double in size by 2016.
Many Teach For America corps members and alumni teach in and lead KIPP LA schools. We are proud to be a partner in their mission to “teach the academic skills, foster the intellectual habits, and cultivate the character traits needed for students to thrive in high school, college, and life.”
Region Timeline
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The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the Mexican-American War and ceding California to the United States.
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The first schoolhouse opens in Los Angeles.
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The first college in Los Angeles, St. Vincent’s (now Loyola University), is established. Today, there are 42 colleges and universities in Los Angeles County.
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During World War II, Japanese Americans in California are forcibly moved to internment camps. With thousands of jobs left open, blacks from the south flock to Los Angeles for work and the city’s African American population doubles.
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Mexican American students in Los Angeles stage walkouts at their schools to protest unequal educational and employment opportunities, political disenfranchisement, and police brutality.
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LAUSD is found guilty of intentionally segregating city schools. A desegregation busing program called Permits With Transportation begins with seven Watts students bused to Birmingham High.
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Los Angeles’ population grows to 3,005,072, surpassing Chicago as the second most populous city in the nation.
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One Latino and three white Los Angeles police officers are acquitted by a jury for the beating of black motorist Rodney King. The decision sparks one of the worst racially-fueled riots in history. Six days later, 53 are dead, more than 2,000 are injured, and the city is reeling from an estimated $1 billion in damages.
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California becomes the first state in history to pass a “Parent Trigger” law, giving parents the right to organize and demand change at their children’s failing schools.
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January 2011: In a historic decision, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge rules in Reed v. State of California that seniority can no longer be a factor in teacher layoffs throughout LAUSD.
Overheard
I decided to join the corps to prove that minorities succeeding was not an anomaly, and that through teaching, I could help inspire more minorities to follow in my footsteps and pursue their ambitions.
Los Angeles Corps 2010
Press
July 8, 2011
"Tim Schlosser sounded so forthright, so earnest and so impossibly young, he had "Teach for America" written all over him..."
July 8, 2011
"'Think Ivy League," pleaded Mrs. Anderson, my English teacher. "Ivy League? What is that?" I remember thinking..."
