Charter Schools in the City of Los Angeles Paul Dunoguez UP 206A Geographic Information Systems December 6, 2010 A shift in Public Education

What factors determine the location of charter schools in the City of Los Angeles? The LAUSD Charter School program serves low-income and minority students from the city’s historically underachieving and overcrowded communities. As a charter, a school can implement unique programs that provide smaller class sizes and focus on personalized instruction for each student. –On average, API scores were 155 points above those of neighboring traditional schools* –Nearly three-quarters of Los Angeles Unified campuses rank among the state's lowest- performing schools. –Nearly 40 percent of local charter schools were ranked in the state's top 10 percent.* Focusing in the South LA/South Central* area of Los Angeles, I looked primarily at median income, poverty and public assistance to examine the current location of charter schools. The Median Income for the City of Los Angles (1999): $36,687* The Median Income for South LA (1999): $ 34,408 * Sources: US Census Bureau, State and County Quick Facts ( * ZIP Codes: 90001, , 90011, 90037, 90047, 90061, * “LAUSD Scores Mixed”, Los Angeles Daily News, Connie Llanos, 5/17/2010. ( * “LAUSD Charter Schools See Improved Test Results ”, Neon Tommy, Helen Tobin, September 14, 2010, ( improved-test-results)

Conclusions Academic Performance Index (API) remain the most important factor in determining which schools are susceptible to converting to charter schools. Poverty levels correlate to the locations of Charter Schools in Los Angeles. Those two factors will make it so there is a continued increase in charter schools to the South LA area…that, and politics…

the political side LAUSD

GIS Skills Inset Map Geocoding Geoprocessing Attribute Subset Selections Boundary Sub-sets Selections Buffering Images Modeling Metadata Measurement Original Data Chart Hot Spot Analysis Sources American Fact Finder, 2000 American Census US 2000 Census US Census Bureau, State and County Quick Facts “LAUSD Scores Mixed ” Los Angeles Daily News, Connie Llanos (May 17, 2010) “LAUSD Charter Schools See Improved Test Results ” Neon Tommy, Helen Tobin (September 14, 2010) Los Angeles Unified School District ( Green Dot Public Schools (