Although the brawl that took place on the Sylmar High School campus Monday is garnering national attention, it’s for the wrong reasons. “It was not race related, it was not about bullying,” said principal James Lee, who came to the school four years ago. Lee allowed students to take over the stage on Wednesday night at...

Almost without comment Tuesday, the LA Unified school board voted unanimously to seek help from outside the district to replicate high-achieving schools. The resolution was introduced by Monica Garcia and Ref Rodriguez and asks the district staff to “seek outside support for the funding” to replicate successful school programs in areas of high need in the...

LA Unified board members asked Tuesday for an in-depth analysis of a union-funded report stating that the district loses more than half a billion dollars because of independent charter schools. A response from the California Charter Schools Association, delivered after an hours-long recess while the school board met in closed session to address litigation against the district, called...

Many high school seniors think of spring as college admission season. Yet the nation’s most selective colleges seem determined to rebrand it as rejection season. Increasingly, the marketplace has rewarded colleges that turn away the most students, and the competition to be competitive has become white-hot. Winning that competition may be great for colleges, but...

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, LA School Report spent some time recently talking with Brendan Wallace, a math teacher at Alliance Marc and Eva Stern Math and Science High School. On Thursday, Wallace was named the Teacher of the Year for Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, an organization that runs 27 charter schools in Los Angeles. (Check...

The 74 marks National Charter Schools Week (May 1-7) with a series of articles about America’s charter leaders, students and policies. See the full series. At the beginning of 2016, Rainshadow Charter High School in Reno, Nevada, was on its last legs. The Washoe County school board had granted Rainshadow just a one-year charter extension to...

About 200 parents, students and teachers rallied Wednesday morning outside Castelar Street Elementary School in Chinatown as part of a “walk-in” calling for lower class sizes at LA Unified, increased staffing and more accountability for Prop. 39, the law that gives charter schools the right to use empty class space at district schools through a process called...

UTLA is helping parents organize protests on May 4 at schools throughout the district, and in a letter more than 500 charter school parents are asking to stop it. The Reclaim Our Schools protest is part of a nationally scheduled demonstration for Wednesday, and UTLA says 80 cities and counties have signed up to rally against...

A recent report issued by the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) found that charter schools in the state are excelling at getting historically disadvantaged students into college over traditional schools. According to the report, “African-American and Latino charter students almost twice as likely (19 percent) to apply to [the University of California system] as their...

Internationally renowned education expert Pedro Noguera warned members of the LA Unified school board and superintendent that unless more serious measures are taken, the nation’s second-largest school district is destined to lose more students. “The future is dire,” Noguera told the Committee of the Whole on Tuesday afternoon. He pointed to entire neighborhoods in Philadelphia...