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Micah Ali is an American politician, public policy strategist, and education and equity policy expert from Compton, California.

Biography
Micah was born and raised in Compton, California, and is a product of its local schools. He was first inspired to get involved in politics to champion his community and ensure their voices would be heard.

Micah was first elected to the Compton Unified School District (CUSD) Governing Board of Trustees in 2007 and was overwhelmingly reelected in 2011 and 2015. Ali brings a keen understanding of the complex issues facing urban school districts, strategic policy acumen, and an unwavering commitment to fight on behalf of working families and public schools.

Ali currently serves as the President-Emeritus of the Compton Unified School District's Governing Board of Trustees. He has the distinction of being the longest-serving Board President in the District's history.

In 2017, Ali founded the California Association of Black School Educators, a nonpartisan group dedicated to achieving educational equity for all, with a strong focus on boosting Black student achievement.

Throughout his career, Ali has prioritized helping students, working families, and urban communities. His long record of public service and community engagement includes serving as the Chair of the Council of Urban Boards of Education, Founder and Inaugural President of the California Association of Black School Educators, and a member of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials. He has also served as a Board Member for both the National School Boards Association and the California School Boards Association.

Ali has a long track record of serving as an education trendsetter. He has consistently been among the first to advocate for transformative common-sense policies before they became mainstream. Over his career, he has championed expanding access to Early Care and Education for low-income children, establishing school-based health centers to extend local health care opportunities to students in need, and bolstering opportunities for academic excellence in public schools.

During his tenure, CUSD eradicated a $39 million debt and has historically improved graduation rates across the District. Ali has worked to include teachers' involvement in decision-making that impacts classroom instruction. He has also fought to create safe classroom environments for students, teachers, and classified employees.

Early Career
Micah started his career as a United States Congressional Fellow to Congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald before serving as a Council Liaison Officer in the City of Compton. He then worked as a Project Manager for Compton's Redevelopment Agency before taking on roles at both Boeing and Raytheon.

Around the time Micah first ran for the Compton School Board, he started serving as the Director of the Los Angeles County Education Foundation, where he focused on school-based health centers, early care and education, and raising student achievement.

CABSE
As a dedicated equity champion, Micah saw that more could be done to achieve equity for all students, especially at the state and national levels. He felt that much of the attention on equity was mere lip service that lacked concrete action or fundamental change. As a result, in 2017, Micah started the California Association of Black School Educators (CABSE), a nonpartisan organization consisting of elected and appointed school officials, administrators, and instructors from across California. CABSE is committed to advancing equity and the PK-14 educational opportunities available to all students in California, with an emphasis on under-represented and under-served Black students, by enacting policies that will strengthen student performance while bolstering opportunities for college and career readiness in order to ensure competency and lifelong success.

Since being founded, CABSE has become a national leader in educational equity and is currently a grantee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dual Enrollment
In 2016, under Micah's leadership, Compton Unified sponsored AB 2364 (Holden), which allowed nonresident students in the state to qualify for and access in-state tuition if they were in a dual enrollment education program. This expanded educational opportunities for nonresidents while ensuring they had a chance to pursue their higher education.

School-Based Health Centers
Micah has long championed mobile health clinics and school-based health centers. He was instrumental in establishing these centers within Compton and has since led the District's efforts to partner with the St. John's Well and Child Center.

Enhancing Diversity of Education Workforce
Based on the successes of the Compton Male Teachers of Color Network, AB 520 would have created a grant program to support, expand, and implement these programs in schools across the state. The decision was made to incorporate the bill into the 2021-2022 State Budget and ultimately resulted in:

Prioritizing the entirety of the $350 million earmarked for the
 * 1) Teacher Residency Block Grant for candidates who demonstrate a commitment to enhancing the diversity of the teacher workforce (i.e., candidates of color).
 * 2) Further, a portion of the $1.5 billion Educator Effectiveness Block Grant was set aside to promote teacher retention programs, such as the Compton Male Teachers of Color Network.

Early Care and Education
Micah was an instrumental proponent in expanding the number of state preschool and transitional kindergarten slots, providing additional funding, and modernizing the state's early care delivery system.

Compton Turnaround
The Compton Turnaround was a transformative initiative that focused on boosting student achievement and was marked by investments in new facilities, extracurricular programs, and academic courses. Some of these accomplishments include:

Higher Graduation Rates
The most dramatic element of the turnaround was the significant improvement in the District's graduation rates. In just a few short years, CUSD saw an increase in its graduation rates of nearly 30 points – from 60% in 2014 to almost 90% in 2019 – marking the first time that the District exceeded the statewide average.

New Facilities
CUSD started replacing and modernizing its aging facilities, starting with Compton High School, which was over 100 years old. The new campus will be a state-of-the-art facility focusing on social-emotional learning and reimagining the classrooms of tomorrow by creating calming spaces conducive to learning. Further, Compton High will feature the new Dr. Dre performing arts center – a 1,200-seat theater

Award Winning Schools
In the years following the District's turnaround, numerous campuses have received recognition and awards, including: two National Blue-Ribbon Schools, teacher of the year, two Golden Bell Schools, and sent a team of students to the national Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) competition, where they won first place. These successes were shared and celebrated with the Legislature and the Department of Education.

Innovative Extracurricular Programs
CUSD has implemented several innovative extracurricular programs, new initiatives, and pathways to ensure students are provided with fun and engaging activities while at school. One such example is the Bonus Tracks program. This 10-week seminar allows students to learn about the inner workings of the music industry directly from executives at Capital Records, culminating in the possibility for them to earn internships and scholarships from the record label. The District has also established robust robotics and competitive e-sports clubs, ensuring that it offers relevant and innovative extracurriculars that meet the needs and interests of students in the 21st century.

Compton Early College
CUSD also established the Compton Early College. This hybrid dual enrollment program offers students a more challenging course load and allows high schoolers to graduate with their Associate Degree and college credit. CUSD's Early College program has been enormously successful – Compton Early College has had a 100% graduation rate and a 100% four-year college acceptance rate since its first cohort graduated. It is currently ranked #32 in California and #280 Nationally.

SAT/ACT Lawsuit
Compton Unified was one of the plaintiffs that successfully sued the University of California system over its use of SAT/ACT scores in college admissions. CUSD was ultimately successful by highlighting the inherent disparities in testing preparation between communities and how the tests were geared towards students from more affluent backgrounds. The UC system committed to phasing out the test and has since suspended the use of SAT/ACT test scores in the admissions process.

Office of Black Student Achievement
Realizing that Black students consistently scored among the lowest of pupil subgroups, CUSD created a dedicated office within the administration to focus exclusively on boosting Black student achievement and mitigating some of the unique challenges Black students face.

Response to COVID-19
Compton Unified was among the first districts to shut down school campuses and prioritize the health and safety of students and staff as a direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The District was successful in predicting and preemptively mitigating some of the pandemic's biggest challenges – even ones that other districts struggled with.

Digital Divide & Devices
Nearly immediately after schools were closed, the District partnered with digital partners to provide our students with wireless hotspots and digital devices. The District successfully provided coverage to all students and subsequently upgraded their devices to higher-quality Chromebooks. We also offered online tutorials and troubleshooting support to students and parents.

Meals
Recognizing that many students relied on free school meals every day, the District set up several dedicated meal pickup sites throughout the District. These meal pickup sites were geographically distributed to maximize coverage to students and families.

Cohorts
CUSD firmly believes that students learn best in in-person classrooms. As such, Compton was among the first districts to begin safely returning small cohorts of students to the classroom as soon as the state allowed it. The District initially started with Early Learners, English Learners, and Special Ed students before expanding it to include Black students. The District began the 2021 school year with over 25% of our students back in the classroom.

No-Fail Grading
The pandemic took an enormous toll on student health and wellbeing. Like many districts, CUSD leadership realized that some students were not completing their assignments and were at risk of failing their coursework. Recognizing this fact, we adopted a growth-mindset approach that gave middle and high school students additional time to make up their homework assignments. As part of this, we implemented a temporary no-fail policy for students during the pandemic so as to not burden them with additional obstacles that could interfere with their future college and career prospects.

Vaccine & Testing Partnership
Early into the pandemic, District leadership realized that the most effective way to ensure the safety of our students, staff, and the wider community would be to ensure easy and convenient access to testing and vaccination sites. With that knowledge in mind, CUSD partnered with St. John's Well and Child Center to provide free testing to the Compton community. Once vaccines were available, we further expanded this partnership to provide our students, teachers, and staff with convenient and local vaccination sites throughout the city. This was accomplished by turning a few of our school sites into vaccination hubs for the community.

Boards and Positions Held Current: • Compton Unified School District, President-Emeritus • National School Boards Association, Board Member • Council of Urban Boards of Education, Chair and Steering Committee Member • National Black Council of School Board Members, Chair-Elect • Compton Creek Mosquito Abatement District, President • South Coast Air Quality Management District Hearing Board – Public Member

Historical: • California Department of Justice Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board, Board Member • Friends of the Ballona Wetlands, Board Member • Los Angeles County Education Foundation, Executive Director • California School Boards Association, Board Member

Education CSU Dominguez Hills (BS) Loyola Marymount University (MA)