Most California parents assume that when they send their children to school on a hot day, someone is responsible for keeping them safe. They assume there are rules and that the adults in charge will notice if a child is struggling in the heat. That assumption is not always true. Until very recently, it was...

One of the many surprises of being a new parent is just how many diapers a tiny baby can go through in a day. In the haze of those first weeks and months adjusting to having an infant, parents shouldn’t have to worry about whether they can afford enough diapers — or what financial sacrifices...

The first time a 5-year-old told me swimming wasn’t for him, I asked him what he meant. He shrugged. No one in his family had ever learned. It just wasn’t for people like them. And he said it in the same matter-of-fact manner as if telling me the sky was blue. The fourth time a...

At LA’s BEST, we believe in this city. We believe in its people, its resilience and its capacity to do right by every Angeleno, including its youngest ones. And we believe that when the City of Los Angeles and its community partners work together, extraordinary things happen. Then-Mayor Tom Bradley, in a move both practical...

In 10 years, you see a lot. You see students enter kindergarten and grow into young adults ready to step into the world. You see educators develop their craft, take on new challenges and at times struggle under growing demands. You see communities change — economically, culturally, emotionally. And if you are paying attention, you...

Our country has long been committed to maintaining schools as safe spaces for children to learn. Until now. Decades of presidential administrations representing both parties have stood behind policies that kept immigration enforcement out of schools, except in extreme and unusual circumstances. The rules were designed so immigration officers could do their jobs without putting...

For the first time in its history, the Los Angeles Unified School District reports that in 2025, 100% of American Indian seniors graduated from high school. That is a milestone. It deserves to be acknowledged, honored, and protected. But numbers, especially small ones, require us to look more closely. There were 23 American Indian seniors...

After the Eaton fire, I went to see a friend in Altadena. He told me his neighbor saw the embers and came to wake him up. That neighbor saved his life. They spent the night watering down their properties, watching the flames move through the hills. Doing what neighbors do when everything is on fire...

Two months after Donald Trump swore in Linda McMahon as secretary of education, she named “evidence-based literacy” as one of the administration’s top three priorities. Yet the White House’s 2027 budget plan proposes cutting funding for some of America’s most vulnerable students by nearly 70% — from programs that create the conditions for children to learn to read.  You cannot...

We adults are perennially susceptible to panicking about the health and safety of “kids today.” From the alleged perils of mass access to film in the early 1900s to early 1990s nerves over hip hop to today’s anxieties about smartphones and social media, we’re pretty much always finding reasons to collectively worry about American youth. ...