AAP/CCEE - Solution

AAP/CCEE has a solution . . .

Although it is true that many inner city minority children have risen above poverty and adversity to become vital contributors to society, it is equally true that it takes sheer determination and inner strength to become a member of this select group. Without the proper education and support, our youth will not be able to grow up to become members of this select collective.

AAP/CCEE continues to address these issues, and more, through community organizing, parent advocacy and youth leadership training.

Statistics collected from the California Department of Education reveal that poor and minority students are the least likely to thrive academically and more than twice as likely as non-minority students to:

fall behind and have to repeat a grade
require remedial instruction; and
end up unemployed, on welfare or in jail.

Given these probabilities, and the fact that these racial groups comprise the student body at the majority of inner city schools in Los Angeles, we have established benchmarks to address these issues.

We take special care to provide coordinated services that ensure youth receive fair and equitable access to education. AAP/CCEE provides mediation and intervention, dispute resolution, as well as advocacy and community organizing services. Each component is fully discussed with parents during our advocacy and empowerment training seminars, as they are pertinent in creating substantial systemic change within the educational hierarchy.

Each area of our program addresses the methods youth, parents and community shareholders may utilize to positively impact the education, discipline and matriculation of our youth in the public school system. Through training seminars, one-on-one counseling, group activities, and conferences, youth and parents are not only shown the relevance of their, or their child's current educational situation to their future financial and social outcomes, but are shown how to make changes in those circumstances through viable, productive alternatives.

By implementing community assessments and relative research and data, we have high-quality system performance data that measures progress and allows us to monitor the status of our children and intervene with alternate solutions before it's too late. At AAP/CCEE, all of these efforts are precluded by the high standards set for all students. Student achievement is enhanced, maintained and monitored by these standards.

California's public schools are on a slow track toward improvement. Only a small percentage of California students perform to high academic standards. Guaranteed, those few are not the schools in low income and impoverished communities. The writing skills of three in five California 10th graders are below a level at which writing iscoherent, organized and developed, nearly one-third of all 10th graders score at a level where the reader only occasionally recognizes ideas and almost never connects those ideas. Just three percent of the state's 8th graders have advanced math skills and nearly half are rated below basic in math. Where is the equitable education be- ing implemented in those statistics? (Sources: California Learning Assessment System, 1996; National Assessment of Education Progress, 1995)

Unfortunately, these statistics are no longer shocking. They have become the norm for Californias public schools, and in particular, for minority students. AAP/CCEE has taken an offensive stand against these crimes inflicted on our minority youth. We have developed, refined, and spearheaded a comprehensive program to address these injustices that continue to negatively impact our community, and the future of generations of minority youth.