One LA - IAF's educational strategy addresses the challenges facing Los Angeles schools with a three-tiered approach to reform: First, working to transform the culture of member schools by building trust among all adults in the school community. Second, alleviating pressures that affect the classroom such as environmental conditions, housing, and safety. And third, building a powerful constituency to ensure that education policy is crafted with the input of parents and educators.

1. Building Trust in Schools: One LA - IAF member schools work to develop a relational culture - a culture based on interpersonal trust - and a community of learners. We see this as necessary to combat the usual school culture of isolation, fear, punitive incentives, and deficit-model thinking that sees all parties (administrators, teachers, parents) as problems to be overcome rather than as resources to be developed. One LA - IAF organizers and leaders work so that parents, teachers, and administrators in a school community form relationships of trust and learn to see each other as partners rather than as adversaries.

2. Alleviating Pressures on the Classroom: A quality education requires educating the whole child. Children who live in substandard housing, are forced to move because of rising rents, are scared to walk home after school, or have difficulty getting the health care they need are children who will have a tougher time achieving academic success in the classroom. One LA - IAF works to build networks within and between schools and congregations so that parents and school personnel can work together to address the obstacles inside and outside the school environment that affect what happens in the classroom.

3. Impacting Education Policy: Schools do not exist as islands - they are affected by the decisions and policies of school boards, state legislators, and federal office-holders. For education policy to reflect educational reality, educators must be involved in developing the policies they implement. One LA - IAF works to build a constituency that can act on behalf of public education and to develop critical thinking skills in students and citizens at the district, state, and federal levels.