Thirty seven community groups under the umbrella of the nonprofit organization Communities for Los Angeles Student Success (CLASS) are asking the LA Unified school board to form a committee of community leaders to participate directly in the search for a new superintendent. The organization wants the committee to have the opportunity to interview top candidates and provide...

A plurality of LA School Report readers responding to an online poll want LA Unified to return to a tradition schedule, starting school after Labor Day in September, giving families an eight-week window for summer vacations in July and August. With 758 readers voting, over 41 percent chose the post-Labor Day schedule, which is what LA Unified...

Accusations that charter schools screen out special education students or discourage them from enrolling have returned with a controversial plan by the Broad Foundation to expand charter enrollment at LA Unified. After the president of the LA teachers union, Alex Caputo-Pearl of UTLA, raised the issue a year ago, telling the Los Angeles Times a year...

With his massive plan to enroll half of all LA Unified’s students into charter schools, billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad is threatening major disruptions at LA Unified, cementing his role as Public Enemy No. 1 to many district and local union leaders. But Broad’s enduring support for public charter schools now appears to be contributing to...

In building a case for creating 260 charter schools within in LA Unified eight years at a cost of $490 million, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation has cited “significant” gains by three charter organizations that have received $75 million from the foundation. But when all factors are considered, there is little conclusive evidence in the report...

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recognized 335 schools today as National Blue Ribbon Schools for 2015, and included on the list is one from LA Unified, the independent charter Kipp Raíces Academy School. Kipp is one of 33 schools from California to receive the honor, which recognizes both public and private elementary, middle, and high schools in...

Just months having securing a new three-year contract that included a hefty raise for its members, all is not well at the the Los Angeles teachers union, UTLA. The latest issue of its monthly newsletter is no easy, breezy read, and it suggests that the months and years ahead may be as tumultuous as the recent past. UTLA...

While overall scores on the recent Smarter Balanced tests for LA Unified were disappointing, there are quite a few schools proving they can beat the odds of poverty and language barriers. At least 16 qualify as diamonds in the rough — or as Superintendent Ramon Cortines recently described them, “pockets of excellence.” Despite an above-average number of...

LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines dropped some news on the crowd Tuesday when he announced that Chief of External Affairs Edgar Zazueta is leaving the district. Zazueta, who was onstage at the time, moderating the district’s “Back to School” forum at the  Edward R. Roybal Learning Center,  is the district’s chief lobbyist in Sacramento and Washington D.C. “This...

LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines is praising the high performance of the district’s magnet schools on on the recent Smarter Balanced standardized tests, which based on a district analysis shows 65 percent of them scoring higher than the state average in English language arts and 56 percent of them scoring higher than average in math. “The performance...