Save Primary Promise Early Literacy Program in Los Angeles Unified School District
Save Primary Promise Early Literacy Program in Los Angeles Unified School District
The Issue
Primary Promise is an intervention model which provides targeted schools with designated and trained interventionists to accelerate the development of early literacy and numeracy skills for students in grades kindergarten through second grade.
Primary Promise, unanimously supported by every board member in 2020 when it started, is the most promising early literacy program in the nation. This is not only backed up by data, but with abundant anecdotal evidence from teachers, parents and students. It is the first proactive program we have seen; it addresses students struggling to read at the very beginning of their education, and allows them to get on track with their peers. This program is targeted, and it works, as evidenced by the data shown in the image below, "Finding the Holy Grail."
The LAUSD has plenty of programs that don't work, so we, a coalition of parents, teachers, staff and community members, are asking the board to stop Superintendent Carvalho from unilaterally dismantling this program that does in fact work, in order to enact a lesser version called the "Literacy and Numeracy Intervention Model (LNIT)." The LNIT is hiring interventionists who may not have the same training that Primary Promise teachers have. It also expands the program through middle school. This is NOT the same program. PP specifically targets early readers, LNIT is a general intervention program.
The Superintendent claims the data is not clear, which is not only incorrect as we saw in the data above, but he in fact dismantled Primary Promise before any future data collection could take place. There may be data collected in the future, but how can we rely on data collected from a dismantled program?
We are asking the board and the Superintendent to keep Primary Promise as is, and use LNIT to students in 3rd grade and older. The funds are there, the School Board made the unanimous decision in June 2020 to invest in this critical program. This foundational work needs to continue and district leadership can allocate the funding for it.
1,766
The Issue
Primary Promise is an intervention model which provides targeted schools with designated and trained interventionists to accelerate the development of early literacy and numeracy skills for students in grades kindergarten through second grade.
Primary Promise, unanimously supported by every board member in 2020 when it started, is the most promising early literacy program in the nation. This is not only backed up by data, but with abundant anecdotal evidence from teachers, parents and students. It is the first proactive program we have seen; it addresses students struggling to read at the very beginning of their education, and allows them to get on track with their peers. This program is targeted, and it works, as evidenced by the data shown in the image below, "Finding the Holy Grail."
The LAUSD has plenty of programs that don't work, so we, a coalition of parents, teachers, staff and community members, are asking the board to stop Superintendent Carvalho from unilaterally dismantling this program that does in fact work, in order to enact a lesser version called the "Literacy and Numeracy Intervention Model (LNIT)." The LNIT is hiring interventionists who may not have the same training that Primary Promise teachers have. It also expands the program through middle school. This is NOT the same program. PP specifically targets early readers, LNIT is a general intervention program.
The Superintendent claims the data is not clear, which is not only incorrect as we saw in the data above, but he in fact dismantled Primary Promise before any future data collection could take place. There may be data collected in the future, but how can we rely on data collected from a dismantled program?
We are asking the board and the Superintendent to keep Primary Promise as is, and use LNIT to students in 3rd grade and older. The funds are there, the School Board made the unanimous decision in June 2020 to invest in this critical program. This foundational work needs to continue and district leadership can allocate the funding for it.
1,766
The Decision Makers
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Petition created on May 16, 2023