LA School Report

Only about half of the kindergarteners in Orange County, California, are developmentally ready for kindergarten, while about 80% have the emotional maturity and social competence necessary for school, according to the Early Development Index (EDI), an assessment of social-emotional development, cognitive development, language and communication skills and physical health. The Early Childhood Friendly City initiative...

These are lean times in public education. Public school enrollment is declining nationwide and in California. Major federal funding cuts to public education are looming, and California’s own budget woes mean that it will not be able to backfill these shortages.  Lean times should call for intentionality in allocating scarce resources and conservation of the...

The nation’s largest charter system has dealt a crushing legal blow to its foes – but challenges remain for the once-revolutionary movement. After a series of recent losses, the charter sector in Los Angeles claimed a clear win in June when a California State Supreme Court judge struck down a Los Angeles Unified policy banning charters...

This story was originally published on EdSource. For nearly 20 years, academic strategies, support and policies focused on closing long-standing achievement gaps in STEM between boys and girls. These efforts paid off, and by 2019, girls’ achievement in math and science equaled or exceeded boys’. Then the pandemic hit, and the gaps that took two decades to...

This story was originally published on EdSource. The Los Angeles Unified School District’s board overreached in declaring hundreds of schools off-limits from sharing their facilities with charter schools, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ruled.  Judge Stephen Goorvitch wrote in a June 27 decision that the trustees of the state’s largest school district...

Where did stars like Billie Eilish get a head start on the music industry — while still in high school? Grammy Camp! The Grammy Museum earlier this month hosted nearly 200 high school students from across the country to participate in its week-long Grammy Camp. The national program ran in three cities this year: Los...

Updated July 28 Los Angeles Unified superintendent Alberto Carvalho struck a defiant tone in his back-to-school address Tuesday, pitting the district against federal authorities while praising its resilience from recent wildfires and the pandemic. Three weeks before half a million L.A. Unified students return to classes, Carvalho used the annual speech to preview new initiatives...

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters. California after-school and summer programs will get some of their funding back after the federal government said on Friday that it would restore grants it had previously withheld. But the money is contingent on states complying with Civil Rights laws – a cudgel...

Imagine being 4 years old and ready to start preschool, eager to learn, play and make friends, only to find out there’s no classroom available to you because you have a disability. That’s a reality for too many young children despite the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which for 50 years has mandated a...

The parents come at all hours of the day and night. A nurse drops off her kids before starting a 12-hour day at the hospital. A father picks his kids up in the dead of night, after his warehouse shift ends at 1 a.m. Another mom sometimes needs childcare at 4 a.m. so she can...