Los Angeles Trade Technical College
Los Angeles Trade-Technical College will strive to be a global leader known for effectively incorporating proven educational practices into its career, technical, and professional programs. The college feels the need to broaden the base of support and involvement in college-wide planning and student success activities. Participation in Achieving the Dream will provide an occasion to stimulate renewed enthusiasm and focus on issues of student success and equity.
Improving student outcomes is the college's highest priority. With Achieving the Dream the college will:
- Unify various data collection and evaluation efforts
- Create a diplomatic arena for presenting new ideas and discussing positive change for the college
- Engage internal and external stakeholders in improvement efforts
- Gather evidence to improve, expand, and sustain programs
College leaders are particularly interested in using Achieving the Dream's guidance to improve existing programs to help low-income, first generation, and disabled students. They also recognize the need to involve more stakeholders – students, faculty, and community residents – in planning.
Founded in 1925 as the Frank Wiggins Trade School, Los Angeles Trade-Technical College is the oldest of the nine, public two-year colleges in the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD). Trade-Tech is unique in that approximately two-thirds of its instructional facilities are devoted to career education and it is located in the city of Los Angeles, the most populous city in California, approximately two miles south of the Central Business district. The college serves an area where nearly half its residents are Hispanic, 18% of families are below the poverty line, and its people come from more than 140 countries speaking 224 different identified languages.
Nearly half of all Trade-Tech students work more than 30 hours per week and approximately this same percentage indicate that they are attending the college for job preparation. According to data pulled for the Fall 2009 semester, 75% of Trade-Tech’s students attended only part-time and 47% were younger than age 25. Of the entire student population, 94% were students of color and approximately half (51%) of the total students were Hispanic, while 27% were African American. Trade-Tech also qualifies as a Hispanic-Serving Institution.
The Achieving the Dream Model
Achieving the Dream community colleges commit to our Student-Centered Model of Institutional Improvement. Based on four principles, the model frames the overall work of helping more students, particularly low- income students and students of color, stay in school and earn a college certificate or degree.
Each college approaches the work differently, but Achieving the Dream’s five-step process provides practical guidelines for keeping the focus where it belongs and building momentum over time. Throughout the process, Achieving the Dream coaches offer customized support and help each college’s core team implement data-informed programs and policies that build long-term, institution-wide commitment to student success.
