A teacher who worked as an education policy advisor in President Barack Obama’s administration announced Tuesday she is running for the East San Fernando Valley District 6 seat on the LA Unified school board. Kelly Gonez, a 7th-grade science teacher at Crown Preparatory School in Los Angeles, joins five others who are seeking to replace...

The LA Unified school board today approved the renewal petitions of three independent public charter schools and approved a petition for one new charter school. The new charter school approved by the board is Gabriella Charter School 2, which plans to serve up to 468 students in grades TK-6 in Boyle Heights or Lincoln Heights....

Huntington Park leaders want to ban new charter schools for a year The small, densely populated city of Huntington Park is peppered with schools, about two dozen in 3 square miles. At least 10 are charters, and city leaders contend they’re bringing in unwanted traffic. Their solution is to try to ban new charter schools....

*UPDATED The day before the LA Unified school board is scheduled to vote on the fate of 23 charter schools, the district was hit with a bombshell of a letter signed by 64 charter school leaders. The schools serve 90 percent of the charter students in the district — 196 schools serving 94,595 students, according to...

*UPDATED A record number of charter schools, all outperforming nearby district schools, have been recommended for denial by LA Unified staff when their petitions come before Tuesday’s school board meeting. More than 15,000 students could be affected by board decisions involving charter schools that are up for renewal or revision. Seven schools that have 6,730 students...

Californians, having curbed bilingual education, may now expand It In 1998, voters in California passed a law that severely restricted bilingual education in public schools, arguing that students were languishing in their native language and that requiring English-only instruction would speed up the time it took children to learn English. Now voters are being asked...

When Principal James Lee learned that his students at Sylmar Charter High School had among the biggest jumps in state test scores in the local school district, he was thrilled but surprised, because they managed to pull it off despite a well-publicized lunchtime brawl that erupted on campus right in the middle of testing. He credits the...

Data obtained by LA School Report show how each LA Unified high school’s scores on the state standardized tests improved or declined over the past two years. The district overall showed a 3 percentage point increase in math scores and a 6 percentage point increase in English language arts test scores. The improvements came along with increases...

A misguided attack on charter schools  The N.A.A.C.P., the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, has struggled in recent years to win over younger African-Americans, who often see the group as out of touch. The N.A.A.C.P.’s board will reinforce that impression if it ratifies an ill-advised resolution — scheduled for a vote this weekend — that...