So far, LA Unified parents seemed more interested in weighing in on the school calendar than on the superintendent search. Twenty parents and teachers showed up at a community forum last Thursday night at Burroughs Middle School in Hancock Park. That is a robust number compared with the average turnout at community forums held over two...

By Lee Hale My editor, Steve Drummond, isn’t that old of a guy. He’s from Michigan — Wayne Memorial High School, class of ’79. But when he starts talking about backpacks, he dips into a “back in my day” tone that makes you think of a creaky rocking chair and suspenders: “You know, Lee, when...

Deterioration of arts programs has been particularly jarring in LAUSD Budget cuts and a narrow focus on subjects that are measured on standardized tests have contributed to a vast reduction of public school arts programs across the U.S. Los Angeles Times, by Zahira Torres and Ryan Menezes Comprehensive Common Core survey sent to teachers, principals...

* UPDATED A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge issued a temporary restraining order against Alliance College-Ready Public Schools late yesterday, ordering its administration to cease stifling a unionization effort. The LA teachers union, UTLA, is currently attempting to unionize the teachers at the charter school organization, which is LA Unified’s largest with 27 schools and...

A survey by a civil rights group shows that Muslim students in California get bullied twice as much as the national average. The full report from the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CA) reflects interviews with more than 600 Muslim students, ages 11 to 18. It found that 55 percent of Muslim students have...

LAUSD ordered to pay $6M to 2 boys molested by Telfair teacher Two teenage boys were each awarded more than $3 million Thursday from Los Angeles Unified as compensation for being sexually abused in a Pacoima elementary school. CBS-LA.com 8,000 LAUSD students who failed exit exam eligible for diploma The students are those who failed...

LA Unified board President Steve Zimmer has announced he will be wearing a Halloween costume tomorrow when he visits schools. Oh, it’s not to join festivities planned for many of the LA Unified schools. Rather, he wants to give one last-ditch effort to push people to provide input into the superintendent search by filling out a...

A resolution approved by the LA Unified school board on Oct. 13 didn’t receive a lot of attention, but the vote to approve a pilot program with the online company Schoology has the potential to completely change how students, teachers, parents and administrators interact. The resolution launches a two-year pilot program that will test an...

By Louis Freedberg Against the backdrop of enthusiasm regarding new reforms underway in California, from the Common Core to the Local Control Funding Formula, the just-released scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, brought a brush with reality. Mirroring national results, scores in California on 4th-grade math dipped by 2 points and...