Charter advocates were partially successful three months ago in getting the U.S. Department of Education to ease what they saw as onerous new rules for a program that provides start-up funds to new schools. But that compromise hasn’t stopped advocates in two states and members of Congress from trying to remove the remaining changes to the $440...

A Labor Day weekend cyber attack affecting thousands of Los Angeles Unified School District students has families questioning what they can do to keep their information safe. According to an LA Times report hackers used ransomware to freeze and disable some LAUSD systems. “The student management system was touched,” said LAUSD superintendent Alberto Carvalho. Authorities...

With state data projecting at least 10% drops in student enrollment over the next decade in some California counties, superintendents are worried. “Some of them are scratching their heads, saying ‘This is something we didn’t expect, and it is hard to know if this is our new enrollment trend,’” said Suzanne Speck, executive vice president of Sacramento-based...

It’s a weird time to be having a national conversation about teacher shortages. Thanks in part to the surge of federal relief funds, schools have ambitious hiring plans — but they have been unable to bring on as many people as they would like. As of last month, job openings remain elevated well above normal levels. And yet,...

L.A. Unified’s latest state test scores reveal dramatic decreases in student performance — and an even more striking decline for some ethnic groups and vulnerable students. The outcomes of the 2022 Smarter Balanced assessment showed just 28.47% of LAUSD students met state standards in math, while 41.67% met English standards in the 2021-22 school year...

Scorned by the bureaucracy of Los Angeles Unified School District and the tumultuous politics of reopening schools in the spring of 2021, Carrie Kangro moved her oldest son to a charter school in the midst of the pandemic. Kangro, unsure if LAUSD would reopen schools, made the move despite having a particular love for the...

As the shady ransomware gang Vice Society took credit for a hack that sent Los Angeles school officials scrambling last week, cybersecurity experts noticed something peculiar.  Vice Society, an “intrusion, exfiltration and extortion” group that experts believe is based in Russia, has become notorious for waging cyber warfare against K-12 schools, leveraging the theft of...

California middle and high schools began the academic day later this year, implementing a state law other states are now considering. After long-standing research showed the devastating impact of early classes on teens’ health, California’s district middle schools will start no earlier than 8 am; and high schools will start no later than 8:30 am....

Ask a Boomer or Millenial what they think of Gen Zers and their observations are far from flattering: Overly sensitive, socialist, disengaged, dependent on technology. But those stereotypes have little basis in reality, according to the book, Fight: How Gen Z is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save America, released earlier this year. John Della Volpe,...

New polling on the American education system shows widespread approval of local schools — along with ominous signs of dissatisfaction among both parents and the public at large. In a report published today by PDK International, a professional organization for teachers, over 1,000 adults expressed higher levels of faith in their community’s public schools than have ever...