When downtown’s 9th Street Elementary closed in 2010 to undergo construction on a gleaming new $54 million campus, its state academic rankings placed it among the lowest of the low, even among similar schools. Now, with a gorgeous new campus and ambitious new principal, the school represents a potential bright spot in a district beset...

For the hundreds of teachers who packed a nearly block-long stretch of Beaudry Avenue in front of LA Unified headquarters late yesterday afternoon, the message to the superintendent was simple. “Hey, Deasy, baby, I want my money,” the red-shirted crowd sang in a hip-hop inspired chorus at a rally organized by UTLA in its ongoing...