Groups protest LAUSD spending priorities Several hundred students protested Los Angeles Unified’s proposed budget Monday, claiming poor pupils and schools will receive too little funding. Protest organizer Marqueece Harris-Dawson, president of the Community Coalition, said the district’s spending plan is too vague and does too little for kids who need help the most. LA Daily...

College-Readiness not keeping up in California Fewer than 4 in 10 California high school students are completing the requirements to be eligible for the state’s public universities, fueling worries of a shortage of college-educated workers when the value of a bachelor’s degree has never been higher.To meet entrance requirements, high school students must complete 15...

Funding gap threatens retirement for California teachers The pension fund for public school teachers in California faces a long-term shortfall of $74 billion, threatening its ability to pay for the retirement of nearly 1 million teachers and administrators in the nation’s most populous state, officials said on Thursday. The gap is growing by about $15...

How California schools spent $13 billion generated by Prop 30 The California State Controller’s Office launched a website Wednesday tracking how money from Prop 30 is being spent by charter schools, school districts and community colleges. The measure was approved in November of 2012 and has since pulled in $13.1 billion for teachers, textbooks and general operations, according to the...

Solutions sought to reduce food waste at schools And so it goes on hundreds of campuses in Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school system, which serves 650,000 meals a day. Students throw out at least $100,000 worth of food a day — and probably far more, according to estimates by David Binkle, the district’s...

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti’s approach to LAUSD draws mixed reviews Two weeks after Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s top education adviser left City Hall, there are no immediate plans to fill the position, a sign of the mayor’s hands-off approach to the nation’s second-largest school district. LA Daily News Superintendent’s pay in South Bay district...

Teachers make house calls to improve performance Parent-teacher interaction at most schools centers around annual conferences where mom or dad come to the classroom and sit for an hour listening to an educator talk about how their child is performing. More and more, however, districts across the nation are seeing great gains in student achievement...

Ag students rally in Sacramento to preserve education grants Concerns about future funding for high school agricultural classes and leadership programs are being voiced throughout California—and nowhere louder than at the state Capitol, where thousands of students and members of Future Farmers of America rallied last week to try to prevent elimination of the state’s...

UC financial chief leaving to head up educational foundation Peter Taylor, the UC system’s chief financial officer and executive vice president, said Tuesday that he is leaving the university to run a Los Angeles-based education foundation that will focus on helping low- income students succeed in K-12 schools and college. LA Times San Juan district selects...