The Larry P. Student Scholarship Fund
in partnership with Decoding Dyslexia CA
CEJA is proud to partner with Decoding Dyslexia CA to carry on the Larry P. Student Scholarship Fund, which will continue to award scholarships to socioeconomically disadvantaged African American students in CA public schools who struggle with literacy skills.
All funds are used to secure private tutors who will provide free evidence-based Structured Literacy interventions to scholarship award recipients.
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Who is Larry P.?
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CA public schools never taught Mr. Lester to read and late in life he was found to be a highly capable learner who likely suffered from a reading disability known as dyslexia. Rather than providing dyslexia support, CA public schools mislabeled him as EMR and failed to teach him basic literacy.
Mr. Lester is now a public spokesperson, sharing his painful life experiences of being illiterate and raising awareness around the literacy gap and its significant impact on African American students.
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Why your donation matters
To this day, African American students in CA continue to be oppressed by disproportionately lower literacy levels. Black students face the highest literacy deficit when compared against all other segments, and intersectional factors such as socio-economic disadvantage compound the problem.
On behalf of Mr. Lester and all other students who were and continue to be negatively impacted by CA's legacy of mistreatment in our public schools, the Larry P. Student Scholarship Fund has been established to help disadvantaged African American students receive free access to evidence-based Structured Literacy interventions that help improve their reading.
CA has a sad legacy of mistreatment of its African American students. Larry P. was the pseudonym given to the main plaintiff, Darryl Lester, in the landmark 1970’s case against the State of CA on behalf of African American students who were disproportionately placed in “Educable Mentally Retarded” (EMR) classes based on racially biased IQ tests. These dead-end special ed classes focused on basic living skills with little emphasis on academics, depriving the children of core curriculum, like reading and writing.
thank you!
your donation is fully tax deductible
Darryl Lester & his wife, Cecilia.
Learn more about the Larry P. story:
“A legacy of mistreatment for San Francisco’s black special ed students”
- KALW Local Public Radio
“A Landmark Lawsuit Aimed to Fix Special Ed for California’s Black Students. It Didn’t.” - KQED