California Civil Rights Coalition

Education Equity in California: The Key to a Vibrant Future

All children deserve a quality education that will prepare them for college or the workplace regardless of where they live, the color of their skin, or their immigration status. But California’s under-funding of education over the past two decades has created and prolonged huge deficits in meaningful opportunities to learn for disproportionate numbers of students from California’s least politically powerful communities, namely low-income students, students of color, and immigrants.

Once known for its stellar public school system, the current education landscape in California presents a host of critical issues including: (a) an irrational, inadequate and inequitable school funding system, (b) continued inequities in access to qualified teachers and rigorous college-going curricula for low-income students, students of color, and English Learners, (c) a resulting dropout/graduation crises, particularly among African American and Latino youth, and (d) an accountability system that fails to highlight and hold all the appropriate adults accountable for this state of affairs.

We must continue to urge policymakers to support policies that increase opportunities for lower-income students, students of color, and English Learners to learn, and ultimately, increase academic achievement.

Our ultimate goal is a kindergarten through twelfth grade public school system that provides educational resources equitably for all students in California, and which maintains a two-way accountability system that monitors and ensures the efficient delivery of standards-based resources and opportunities to learn enabling all students to learn to high standards.

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Member Spotlight:

In Campaign for Quality Education  v. State of California nonprofit law firm and advocacy group Public Advocates Inc. is serving as legal counsel for a coalition  of grassroots groups and individuals representing thousands of low-income  students and parents from across California in suing the State for failing in its  constitutional duty to provide every student with an education that prepares them for college and career.

CCRC Members Who Advocate and/or Litigate for Education Equity:

• American Civil Liberties Union (Northern California)
• American Civil Liberties Union (Southern California)
• ACLU San Diego
• Californians for Justice
• Chinese for Affirmative Action
• Justice Matters Institute
• Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
• Multicultural Education Training and Advocacy, Inc.
• National Lawyers Guild, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter
• Public Advocates