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Children’s Defense Fund welcomes new director

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Former L.A. School Board candidate Alex Johnson is embarking on the next step in his journey to improve the lives of children in California.

Johnson, who was recently appointed to the Los Angeles County Board of Education, has now been selected as executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund California (CDF). His top priorities include focusing on education and literacy; insuring that children have adequate outcomes in health coverage; raising additional funds to underwrite the organization’s programs; and expanding the group’s donor base while leveraging partnerships.

One of his first priorities, said Johnson, is continuing CDF’s underlying goal of advancing the agenda of children; those who cannot speak for themselves. “We provide a voice for them,” said Johnson, adding that the 41-year-old Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit does this through its policy work and programs.

In California, the focus in the last few years had been to strategically expand programs, particularly the freedom schools that are designed to help combat “summer learn loss.”

But beyond that, CDF California has in the last two years created pilot freedom schools in the L.A. County probation camps (in 2014 the schools expanded from two to five) that focus on what Johnson calls “catalytic change.”

The implementation of the camp freedom schools is part of the county’s shift of its juvenile justice system from the current outdated model of rehabilitation that includes barrack-style dormitory living, solitary confinement and a lack of compassion and a limited focus on education to the Missouri Model, which research has shown produces the lowest recidivism rate in the nation.

“These children deserve a chance and opportunity to live the fullness of life. That means we have to protect and not punish them but also make sure they are rehabilitated,” Johnson said. “And another part of that is to look at the issue of school discipline.”

Johnson pointed to the “School Climate Bill of Rights” policy that passed in the Los Angeles Unified School District in  2013 as a good example. Now, the focus is to create something similar in the Long Beach Unified School District, he said.

“My goal is to aim us higher in terms of engagement . . . This is an opportunity to join a group of leaders and people committed to do this work,” said Johnson, noting that one of the key challenges his organization faces is making sure that in times of surplus, state budgets invest in children and that young people are not the first cut in tough times.

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