The LA Unified school board in one of its last actions before the new board is installed next month voted to extend Superintendent Michelle King’s contract until 2020. The contract was not up for renewal until 2018. But what would it cost? Here’s a look at provisions in King’s contract that explain why she could...

Only eight people showed up at one of the last chances for parents and educators to give input on the state’s overall school plan that they need to submit in order to get about $80 billion from the federal government. Their top concerns for the state as it formulates its Every Student Succeeds Act plan were...

With only 76 percent of California’s Latino boys and 67 percent of black boys graduating from high school, a new report calls for systemic changes to help this population get to and succeed in college. Key changes should be setting high expectations for young men of color and making college preparation classes the default for...

First-generation college students nationwide say that feeling safer in high school and having the opportunity to attend a non-traditional school could have prepared them better for college, according to a new poll by Students for Education Reform. The poll surveyed 1,000 first-generation students, of which 40 percent were white, 30 percent Latino, 20 percent black,...

High academic expectations and an “alive” and engaged classroom with lots of student-teacher interaction are some of the hallmarks of Joshua Martinez’s East Los Angeles class, where he has taught fourth-grade for the last five years. Martínez has been named one of four winners of the 2017 Fishman Prize for his “superlative classroom practice” at...

June means it’s budget time for the Los Angeles Unified School District. The district published Superintendent Michelle King’s final $7.5 billion budget proposal for the 2017-18 school year on its website late last week, making it publicly available for the first time. It’s a breezy 262 pages.  The school board will hold a public hearing...

State education officials have solicited meetings all month to work out a plan to let the federal education department know how they will help low-achieving students. Some community education leaders said they think the state still has a long way to go. Two meetings will be held this week in Los Angeles, and two more will...

*UPDATED Ten students who helped design their own educational program made up the first graduating class of Hawthorne’s Da Vinci RISE High, a pilot created to help foster and homeless youth conclude their high school education. The students had the responsibility and opportunity to help design the pilot program during the 2016-17 school year. The...

A new interactive map on how safe Los Angeles schools are shows a wide swath of red in predominantly Latino, poor and immigrant neighborhoods, indicating students and teachers report not feeling safe. But one neighborhood with those same demographics stands out for its lack of red. Boyle Heights/East LA is an oasis of green and yellow, meaning that students...

*UPDATED Protesters gathered at an East Los Angeles high school Thursday afternoon after students took to Twitter with #FreeClaudia over the detainment of an undocumented university student who was arrested in front of her home in Boyle Heights. On Friday morning, a San Diego judge ordered the release of 22-year-old Claudia Rueda on her own recognizance, but her...