Founded in 2003, the Center for Powerful Public Schools—formerly the Los Angeles Small Schools Center— provides services to schools and districts in Greater Los Angeles and across California to develop, implement and sustain personalized, high-performing schools that advance public education and ensure student success.
The Center for Powerful Public Schools moniker allows us to build on our legacy of public school reform in Los Angeles and both deepen and expand our mission and work throughout the region. Our organization’s name change to Center for Powerful Public Schools represents our renewed commitment to close the opportunity gap for unrepresented students by supporting schools and school districts in establishing relevant and rigorous educational experiences that engage students and open the door to a successful future.
The Center’s work is particularly focused on improving the region’s lowest-performing schools and ensuring that every student has access to a powerful public school: a place that embraces personalized pathways or learning communities, in which every student is well known and valued, in which the subject matter and projects feel relevant to students, every parent is engaged, and every student is well prepared to succeed in college, career and life. We believe that meaningful reform occurs when those closest to the work of schools have professional autonomy and the necessary supports to engage students in rigorous and relevant learning that is authentic and connected to students’ interests.