*Updated Oct. 31 The 2018 midterm elections, marked by a slate of tightly contested races and a furious backlash against President Trump, will be the most expensive in history. Both Democratic and Republican aspirants in large media markets like Florida and Illinois have smashed quarterly fundraising records, with outside groups vastly outspending the official campaigns. In California,...

*Updated Oct. 22 Luis Sánchez has spent 25 years mobilizing young people in Los Angeles and across California to fight for educational justice, from gaining equal access to a more rigorous curriculum to reducing suspension rates. But he has learned that to release their real power, they need to vote. “If their generation doesn’t vote,...

This is the first year that early voting centers are open in California, and a group that is working to reach every young adult in Los Angeles County — and 100,000 throughout the state — is holding an early-vote party Wednesday that will draw hundreds of Los Angeles high schoolers. Students from seven LA high...

*Updated Oct. 17 LA Unified is continuing to lose about $630 million a year because students aren’t coming to school. So this year, district officials are rethinking strategies and trying new ones, including Saturday school to make up lost days and handing out 1,000 tickets to Los Angeles Rams football games for students with excellent...

As Los Angeles moved one step closer to a teacher strike, LA Unified this week released a Family Resource Guide to help parents prepare for the possibility of a teacher walkout. The guide, also available in Spanish, addresses questions parents have raised about what will happen at the schools and how to talk with their...

Parents who want to volunteer in their children’s schools have run up against a new roadblock this year: a new LA Unified policy is delaying their ability to help teachers in the classroom, and some programs that rely on volunteers have been put on hold. Starting this school year, LA Unified is requiring anyone who has...

For California parents watching how well their public schools are doing at educating their children, the fall release of state test scores has brought only slim encouragement. Elementary school students, particularly in third and fourth grade, moved ahead, while 11th-graders lost ground. But the grimmest news was, once again, reserved for parents whose children are still...

LA Unified will eliminate $43 million in administrative salaries as part of an emergency cost-cutting plan to stave off its fiscal overseers. The cuts won’t be at school sites this year, but rather at the central and local district offices. The number of jobs that will be lost will be left up to each department,...

A teacher seeking advice on how to broach Brett Kavanaugh’s contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation with his students sparked thousands of responses from fellow educators and observers on Twitter this past week. Teacher Nick Ponticello had been searching for the best way to facilitate classroom discussion on what he considers a “big moment” in American...