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Hundreds of LAUSD high schoolers to cast their first ballots at this week’s ‘Ready to Vote Party’

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...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | October 22, 2018
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Saturday school and 1,000 Rams tickets — how LAUSD is trying to turn around a stubborn attendance problem

*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...
By Laura Greanias | October 17, 2018
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New LAUSD guide tells parents how to prepare for a teacher strike and talk to their kids about it

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...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | October 16, 2018
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New fingerprinting requirements are keeping LAUSD parents from volunteering

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...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | October 15, 2018
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Los Angeles moves one step closer to a teachers strike
*Updated Oct. 12 with UTLA’s statement Los Angeles moved one step closer to a strike Friday when mediation efforts ended and LA Unified filed an unfair labor practice charge against United Teachers Los Angeles for refusing to participate in good faith. The two sides now move to a process called fact-finding. Each side has five...
By Laura Greanias | October 12, 2018
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English learners in California remain at the bottom of state test scores with only a hint of progress — and it’s even worse in Los Angeles

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...
By Esmeralda Fabián Romero | October 10, 2018
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LAUSD details 15% job cuts in central and local district offices to satisfy its financial overseers

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,...
By Laura Greanias | October 9, 2018
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A Los Angeles-area teacher asked Twitter how to explain the Kavanaugh saga to students. Thousands — including fellow educators — responded

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...
By Taylor Swaak | October 9, 2018
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California’s only gubernatorial debate mostly ignores education, even though a new poll finds parents of color place a high priority on improving the state’s public schools

Parents of color want California’s next governor to place a higher priority on improving public schools, a new poll finds. But as the two gubernatorial candidates held their first and perhaps only debate Monday, education barely came up. Republican businessman John Cox three times mentioned that the state’s schools are failing children, but there was...
By Laura Greanias | October 8, 2018
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Interview with former Sacramento schools chief, author of ‘Wildflowers: A School Superintendent’s Challenge to America,’ on educating the ‘whole child’

The present erosion of American democratic institutions has a range of ugly consequences — anxiety, distrust, polarization, etc. But most concretely, our current political catastrophe has produced heavy gridlock. Creative, productive policymaking is at an all-time low — including in education. The 2015 passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act ended the No Child Left Behind era...
By Conor Williams | October 8, 2018