As a philanthropist who has spent the last two decades helping turn around underserved schools in the LA Unified School District, I read about the California gubernatorial forum in December with a little hope and a lot of concern.
My hope came from one clear point of agreement: Every candidate on stage at the California School Boards Association’s annual education conference acknowledged that the state’s public school system is failing far too many of its 5.8 million students, especially low-income students and students of color.
That hope didn’t last long. Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco offered his bold solution: universal school vouchers for all students. He compared choosing a school to choosing “the restaurant with the best food” for dinner. The idea is that public money would follow students to private schools, and that competition would pressure lower-performing schools to improve.
I understand the appeal of the metaphor. But it bears little resemblance to the reality of how schools actually improve — or what it takes to turn around campuses that have struggled for generations. In practice, vouchers mainly drain much-needed funding from public schools.
My husband and I cofounded the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools with then-LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa nearly 20 years ago to work within LA Unified School District (LAUSD) in some of the highest-need schools in the city. We now support 20 historically underperforming schools in Watts, Boyle Heights and South LA.
The partnership is a collaboration with LAUSD — not a parallel system. We work with district leadership to strengthen partnership schools, using philanthropic dollars to help build results that, if successful, can be scaled up within the district.
When we started, the graduation rate in our schools was 36%. Today, it’s 90%.
We did not get there by handing families a voucher and telling them to find a better restaurant. We got there by investing — not divesting — in our public schools.
That investment — an additional $850 per student annually paid through philanthropic dollars — goes to recruiting and supporting strong principals and keeping them in place long enough to build a culture of high expectations. We provide continuous training for teachers and equip them with up-to-date, high-quality teaching materials.
And just as important, we make sure students’ families are on board. When parents are genuinely involved in their children’s schooling, students attend more regularly, achieve at higher levels, and are more motivated to do well.
Historically, parents in our school communities have been underestimated and written off as uninterested in their children’s academic life — despite their activism in their communities. We set up “Parent College,” which gives parents the tools and confidence to navigate schools, influence decision-making, and drive outcomes. It turns out that when schools remove barriers — language, bureaucracy, and opaque processes — parents can advocate even more strongly and effectively for their children.
Another small but telling example is gifted program testing for second graders. Years ago, gifted screening was inconsistent across our schools, and too many students — simply because they were in underserved schools — were never included. With just $12,000, we ensured testing for all 380-plus second graders in our schools. Many qualified. Now, LA Unified tests all second graders for the gifted program.
This was a modest investment that didn’t send a handful of children elsewhere. It changed the rules so that thousands more students now have a fair shot at greater opportunities.
The results speak for themselves: Partnership schools posted faster gains than statewide averages both before and after the pandemic, more than doubling the gains in both English and math proficiency.
None of that is created by handing out vouchers and hoping market forces fix what decades of neglect have broken. When public dollars are siphoned away to schools that don’t have to accept all students or report results with the same transparency and accountability, the most vulnerable students are usually the ones left behind.
Rural communities in particular cannot afford a policy that assumes there will always be a better restaurant nearby. Often, there isn’t another school nearby. A voucher in those communities is essentially a coupon for a product that does not exist. And even when options do exist, how many working families can realistically drive their children across town to a private school every day?
The moral and practical solution is to invest in making our local public schools outstanding — not abandon them.
I don’t pretend that funding alone will solve everything. What does make a difference is what I’ve seen in our schools: stability, leadership and a relentless focus on how we teach our students in the classroom. That work requires long-term commitments.
There is a better conversation we should be having in California about our education system. Instead of debating how to help families exit the public school system, we should be discussing how to guarantee that every child can read by third grade, how to better equip our teachers for long-term success, and how to expand what we know works in every neighborhood.
It might not be as flashy as “universal vouchers for all” or “school choice,” but it is what would actually change life outcomes for our students.
California doesn’t need an escape hatch from public education. It needs to commit to the harder, less-glamorous path of sustained investment to turn its public schools around.
Melanie Lundquist is a Giving Pledge signatory and the cofounder of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools.
