Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa attends a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a new
high school in Watts. (photo by Hillel Aron)

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hailed the city's burgeoning charter school movement at a ribbon cutting ceremony on Thursday.

"These are schools that have shown what we can do in the same neighborhoods where schools have failed for far too long," the mayor said in short speech before the ceremony.

Ánimo Watts is operated by Green Dot, a nonprofit organization that runs 19 schools in typically neglected parts of Los Angeles, including Watts, South Central and Inglewood. In addition to starting five new charter schools, Green Dot took over Jefferson High in 2006, and Locke High in 2007, which were then broken up into smaller schools. Ánimo Watts is part of the "Locke Family."

Results of the Locke High takeover are better than they might appear. Standardized test scores were about the same as they had been under the Los Angeles Unified School District. On the other hand, truancy, crime, class-cutting and drop-outs were all significantly down.  

Green Dot CEO Marco Petruzzi, who presided over the ceremony, admitted there was a "long way to go," but that Green Dot was "one hundred percent dedicated to closing the achievement gap."

Not present at the ceremony was the organization's founder and Chairman Steve Barr, whom Villaraigosa referred to as a friend.

Like Barr, Villaraigosa is bullish on the trend toward charter schools.

"By the way," the mayor said, "we're going after Jordan High School."

It was an explicit threat to David Starr Jordan High, another Watts high school. The mayor didn't specify whether he planned on taking Jordan High under his own jurisdiction or turning control over to a charter group.

Two weeks ago, the Los Angeles Board of Education voted 6-1 to approve a plan that would turn over as many as 250 campuses to charter groups. It was a political victory for Villaraigosa, who has tried throughout his five years as mayor to gain control over LAUSD.

Animo Watts sits adjacent to Ervin Magic Johnson Park. This is the third Animo Watts campus in four years, but it holds the  promise of being the first permanent one. The small, two-story, shoebox-shaped building has the capacity to seat 560 students, although only 420 will attend this year, as there is no 12th grade class as of yet. The facility boasts 26 classrooms, two of which are brand new science labs. Some classes will have less than 20 students.

Building of the $9.1 million school was made possible in part by $2 million in tax credits given out by the federal government as part of President Obama's economic stimulus package. The federal funding encouraged financial institutions to invest in community projects, such as schools.

The few students attending the ceremony seemed excited about the new school.

"There's a lot of problems in other schools, because there's a lot of people, and teachers don't have much control of students, said Emanuel Perez, an 11th grader. "This is smaller, so you get to know everybody."

Most of the teachers are young and have a friendly rapport with the students.

Gerard Besina, a Biology teacher popular with the students, said the best part of the new school wasn't its facilities but what it symbolized for students.  

"To know that there's commitment from other people, higher ups that are looking out for them, that believe in them, that will commit large amount of resources towards them."