Credit: John Fensterwald/EdSource Today

Ryan Smith, executive director of Educational activity Trust-West, at his part in Oakland. Behind him is a photo of him with comedian George Lopez and students at Roosevelt High in Los Angeles, whose I Am The Hereafter campaign focused on raising graduation rates.

Ryan Smith got an early lesson in the inequities of education in California when, equally a 6-yr-old, his single mother used her savings to motion from depression-income South Los Angeles to nearby Culver Metropolis in 1987 so that her simply child could attend better schools.

"It was 10 miles away. Every bit far as income was concerned, it was a earth away," said Smith, who terminal month was named executive director of Teaching Trust-Westward, a nonprofit based in Oakland that works to narrow the achievement gap in education.

"Part of the reason I practise this work is that I am grateful for her sacrifice," Smith said in a contempo interview with EdSource. "Part of information technology is my indignation that anyone would have to spend her life savings to send her son to a good school."

Teaching Trust-West works to draw attending to disparities amid California's school districts, highlighting the best practices of districts that excel in educating minority and poor students and pushing for policy changes in Sacramento. That mission volition continue, Smith said.

The skill he brings to the job, he said, is building coalitions of parent and student groups to make sure their voices and interests are reflected in the actions of the State Board of Education and the Legislature.

Smith, 33, arrived at Ed Trust-Westward after directing education programs and policy for the United Way of Greater Los Angeles. He also coordinated the effort of a Los Angeles coalition of civil rights, education and community advocacy groups – known equally Communities for Los Angeles Student Success, or CLASS – to use the state'due south new Yard-12 local funding law to improve achievement for minority and low-income students.

He succeeds Arun Ramanathan, who steered Ed Trust-W'due south piece of work on the Mutual Core State Standards, which have been adopted past California and 42 other states, and the state'south Local Command Funding Formula. Ramanathan at present works as chief executive managing director of Pivot Learning Partners, a nonprofit education consulting system in San Francisco.

After graduating from Culver City High, Smith enrolled in UCLA in 1999. Three years earlier, California voters had approved Proffer 209, an initiative that banned affirmative action in the land's public universities. He was one of only 27 African-American males in a form of 5,000 students at UCLA. The problem, Smith said, was not simply Prop. 209 just improving schools then that more than low-income students of color qualified for the University of California and California State Academy.

"Most parents are not reading our executive summaries or the full reports. How exercise we become that data to parents and organizations that work with students in a form that speaks to them?" – Ryan Smith, executive director, Education Trust-West

During a summer programme for minority students before his freshman yr, an academic officer said to the group, "Look to your left and your correct. Many of y'all won't be here four years from now," Smith recalled. The message was intended to drive home the bespeak of working hard. Instead, Smith said, it was a dispiriting reminder of "how hard the journey is for black, dark-brown and poor children. Nosotros were considered the students of colour competitive enough for an establishment like UCLA simply were beingness told that we may not graduate."

Smith graduated from UCLA and worked as a researcher for the Los Angeles Times editorial board. Afterwards that, he was hired by Green Dot Public Schools, a charter schools network located in some of Los Angeles' about challenged neighborhoods. His job was to work with parents on how to support their children academically.

He then used his fluency in Spanish to organize parents at the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, the organization that former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa created to turn effectually 16 low-performing schools. During Smith's v years there, he created Family Action Teams – a committee at each schoolhouse that consisted of parents, teachers and an administrator that met monthly to create strategies for parent involvement.

Smith also established Parent College, which included sessions in the three R's – rights, roles and responsibilities for parents in education. 4 chiliad parents graduated from the programme, he said, including many who never had finished any schoolhouse.

"They were – and all the same are – incredibly proud to complete the plan, he said. "Some have been inspired to become back to school to inspire their children to go on."

"We can practice a better chore" empowering parents and students "to act for themselves so that policy follows the volition of the people," Smith said. "I started out as an organizer and saw the gap between what happens in a community and what happens in Sacramento."

Still, getting information most state policies to parents and bringing parents' voices to Sacramento are ongoing challenges, Smith said. "Most parents are not reading our executive summaries or the total reports," he added. "How do we get that information to parents and organizations that work with students in a form that speaks to them?"

Ed Trust-West has done innovative work. Its LCAP Lookout man makes it like shooting fish in a barrel to find and compare districts' Local Control and Accountability Plans, the 3-year improvement plans, updated annually, that districts create under the new state funding formula. Earlier the state began releasing revenue estimates for districts under the formula, Ed Trust-Due west published a commune figurer that enabled parents to do their own revenue estimates.

Smith said he plans to use social media and connections with other grassroots organizations to share Ed Trust-West'south enquiry and build a larger base of operations to push button for change. Ed Trust-West'south policy priorities will go on to exist parent appointment, which is a state priority under the Local Control Funding Formula, and the achievement of English learners – the bailiwick of a recent Ed Trust-West report.

In the past year, a lawsuit challenging state laws on teacher tenure, dismissals and layoffs past seniority has consumed much of the debate over education in California. Marshall Tuck, Smith's quondam boss at Green Dot and the Partnerships schools, made the lawsuit, Vergara v. California, a focus of his unsuccessful campaign for country superintendent. Ramanathan, Smith'due south predecessor at Ed Trust-Westward, testified every bit a witness for students who filed the lawsuit.

Just Smith talks virtually a "tertiary mode in education" that avoids getting drawn into the polarizing fight between teachers unions and reformers who concentrate on the issues in Vergara. The real interests of the "disenfranchised communities that we intendance most – students of color and poor students," he said, become lost in the power struggle.

He is looking for common areas to unite students, parents and teachers, he said.

"We can exercise a better task" helping parents and students "to human activity for themselves then that policy follows the will of the people," he said. "I started out as an organizer and saw the gap between what happens in a community and what happens in Sacramento."

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