Dominic Blackwell was one of the first friends Mia Tretta made when she moved to the Santa Clarita Valley, near Los Angeles, in 2018. “He had this infectious laugh,” she said. The two were walking through the quad at Saugus High School on the morning of Nov. 14, 2019 — Tretta remembers being nervous about...

When Los Angeles Unified announced last December that Alberto Carvalho would be its next superintendent, Ana Ponce was skeptical. The executive director of Great Public Schools Now, an advocacy organization, hoped the district would pick someone from the community, not an outsider from 2,700 miles away. But so far, the charismatic educator who led Miami-Dade for 14...

Miah Cerrillo was one of the first children Dr. Roy Guerrero saw when he entered the emergency room at Uvalde Memorial Hospital on May 24. A pediatrician, he’s known the fourth grader since she was a baby and underwent the liver surgeries that saved her life. Both testified Wednesday before a House Oversight Committee addressing...

High school grade point averages have been on an uphill climb since 2016. But that doesn’t mean students are better prepared for college-level work. Their scores on the ACT, a college entrance exam taken annually by 1.7 million students, haven’t budged, according to a report released earlier this month. Between 2016 and 2021, the average GPA for...

California Superintendent Tony Thurmond issued a challenge to the state’s school districts last week to ensure third graders become strong readers by 2026. “We’re asking you to take a pledge today,” he said during the May 20 Zoom session, providing a link for participants to sign. Other elements of Thurmond’s agenda include library cards for 100,000 children,...

BUENA PARK, Calif. — Sliding off their backpacks as they come through the front door of the local Boys and Girls Club, a group of students grab pool cues. Outside, children laugh as they bat around a beach ball on the lawn. But the upbeat mood belies the more serious reason that brings many of...

Enrollment in state pre-K programs fell for the first time in two decades after a period of steady growth, according to a new report focusing on the 2020-21 school year. Before the pandemic, states were serving 44% of 4-year-olds. Now they might not reach 40% over the next 10 years, the report found. “The pandemic...

Harleigh Walker, an Alabama ninth grader, was among the guests at the White House last month when the Biden administration recognized Transgender Day of Visibility. But officials at Auburn Junior High School didn’t think meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris was a valid reason to miss school. “They wanted more evidence that she had gone,”...

Sign up here for LA School Report’s newsletter Kurt Russell, a Black history teacher and high school basketball coach from Oberlin High School in Ohio, has been known to give up his planning periods to sit with one of his players in class — just to make sure the student is meeting academic expectations. A...

Sign up here for LA School Report’s newsletter Almost 600,000 U.S. fourth- and eighth-graders are currently taking national reading and math tests for the first time since the pandemic began. The prospect makes the federal official in charge of measuring student progress a bit anxious. “The likelihood that the scores would be anything but down...