The Digital Divide and Why the Schools & Communities First Initiative Matters

By Aurea Montes-Rodriguez

"... There are literally two Americas. One America is flowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of equality. That America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies, culture, and education for their minds, freedom, and human dignity for their spirits. That America is made up of millions of young people who grow up in the sunlight of opportunity.

... In this other America, thousands, yea, even millions, of young people are forced to attend inadequate, substandard, inferior, quality-less schools, and year after year thousands of young people in this other America finish our high schools reading at an eighth, and a ninth-grade level sometimes. Not because they are dumb, not because they don't have innate intelligence, but because the schools are so inadequate, so overcrowded, so devoid of quality, so segregated, if you will, that the best in these minds can never come out."

—Dr. Martin Luther King, The Other America Speech (March 10, 1968)

The COVID-19 public health crisis has shown that a disproportionate number of households of color lack broadband access. The breadth of the U.S. digital divide will prove that schools in communities of color struggle or do not have the ability to shift from in-school instruction to online distance learning. They also cannot access electronic libraries, streaming videos, and other online resources. The Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel called this tech-abyss the “homework gap”—where low-income students who lack online access lag behind their higher-income counterparts when completing assignments and other school-related activities.”

For more than four decades, big corporations have not paid their fair share, leaving California's school funding lagging. Over the last 40 years, California has disinvested from public education, causing it to slide from one of the top states to one now ranked near the bottom. In 1978, when Proposition 13 passed, California ranked 14th out of 50 states in per-student spending nationally. Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) public schools continue to struggle, falling behind much of the nation despite revenue streams introduced by state ballot initiatives and implemented since 2012. Today, California ranks 41st in K-12 per-student spending.

Community Coalition, along with our coalition partners InnerCity Struggle and Advancement Project California, has been fighting for increased investment for the highest-need students and schools within LAUSD since 2018. And we continue to combat the district’s budgetary policies that leave Black and Latinx students to bear the brunt of historical disinvestment. The result of which has had a tremendously negative impact on Black and Brown students.

According to the Access, Equity and Acceleration Advisory Committee for African American Students, which was created in 2017 by LAUSD, "Black students persist in having L.A. Unified's highest rates of dropouts and suspensions. They are most likely to be identified as needing special education services, and they are least likely to be identified as gifted."

Black students' test scores are also among the lowest in California, with only 20.55% meeting statewide math standards and 33% meeting English. L.A. scores for African American students are slightly lower, with about 20% meeting math standards and 31.95% meeting English. Exacerbating matters is the fact that California now has the most overcrowded classrooms in the U.S. and some of the worst ratios of counselors, librarians, and nurses per student.

The Schools & Communities First (SCF) initiative ensures our schools and communities will come first–- with the resources to educate all of our kids while providing support services to their families. SCF closes commercial property tax loopholes benefiting a fraction of corporations and wealthy investors, without affecting homeowners or renters. Most importantly, it reclaims $12 billion every year—$3.6 billion of which will come to Los Angeles County—to fund the learning environments and grant the access that our children need and deserve.

The Schools and Community First Initiative, which California voters will find on the November 2020 statewide ballot, is our best chance to make sure corporations pay their fair share, and that LAUSD resolves the district's ongoing funding and structural deficits. Black and Brown parents want what all parents want: good schools, a quality education, and learning environments—in school and online— where their children are included in America's promises. In November, we can secure the "the other America" that Dr. King spoke about 50 years ago. By voting “yes’ we can step up and invest in our future, our city, and our kids..