Rise in elementary school truancy prompts raft of bills Warning that truancy has reached a crisis level in California elementary schools, state Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris and half a dozen lawmakers proposed a raft of bills Monday aimed at keeping kids in school. Harris said 30% of elementary school students were truant in the...

In her first public comments since a rival in the LA Unified school board race accused her of falsifying her resume, Genethia Hudley-Hayes told LA School Report today she considers the allegations to be “mudslinging” in an effort “to bully” her out of the race. “I will not be bullied,” she said, of the charges from Alex...

LAUSD iPads: Officials chose incomplete software over competitors When the Los Angeles Unified School District set out last year to buy tablets for every teacher and student, officials drew up a scoring system to rate 19 hardware and software options. The scores meant a lot: the contract will ultimately be worth about $500 million and...

The original field of 13 candidates vying for the vacant LA Unified school board seat just got smaller. Thirteen had expressed interest in the South LA District 1 race, but by the 5 p.m. deadline today, only nine filed the required petitions to stay in the race. The June 3 special election was called after...

With the 5 pm deadline just hours away, six of the 13 candidates who expressed an interest in running for the vacant District 1 LA Unified board seat have qualified for the ballot. By noon today, according to the city clerk’s office, George McKenna, Sherlett Newbill, Alex Johnson, Genethia Hudley-Hayes, Hattie McFrazier and Omarosa Manigault have submitted the...

New teachers scarce after state funding cuts Young teachers have become far more scarce in California classrooms after school districts slashed their budgets to survive the recession. From 2008 to 2013, California saw a 40 percent drop in teachers with less than six years’ experience, according to a Sacramento Bee review of state data. Sacramento...

Educators 4 Excellence, a teacher advocacy group comprised of members of the Los Angeles teachers union, UTLA, has developed an interactive election guide focusing on the 10 candidates running for UTLA president. The guide poses four questions and provides audio responses from each candidate. The interviews were conducted earlier this week and are included in...

Students, area school staff embrace changes to SAT Pablo Muñoz is no stranger to academic rigor. And don’t expect him to shirk additional work. As many cheered sweeping changes to the SAT — such as the optional essay — the 15-year-old Loyola High School sophomore is likely not to skip that portion. “I would probably...

Calif. Bill Would Repeal Bilingual-Education Restrictions A new bill that seeks to repeal California’s long-running restrictions on bilingual education may be only the most recent signal of a shifting political climate around English-language-learner instruction in that state. California drew national attention in 1998 when voters passed Proposition 227, a ballot measure that severely restricted the...