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...

District accountability plans mushroom in size and complexity The burgeoning size of the LCAPs is raising questions about whether after just two years in existence they are turning into a daunting bureaucratic exercise. EdSource, By Michael Collier and Louis Freedberg L.A. teachers weigh in on discipline in reaction to South Carolina case The South Carolina...

Scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly known as the Nation’s Report Card, were released today, and LA Unified’s overall performance took a slight dip — same as scores in California and the nation. It was the first time scores slipped for the district and California since the state’s students started taking the test...

LAUSD fires lawyer (again) who blamed student for sex with teacher Veteran attorney W. Keith Wyatt will no longer handle cases for the nation’s second-largest school system, the district confirmed Tuesday. Los Angeles Times, by Howard Blume A backgrounder on the Alliance — UTLA dispute The PERB sued Alliance College-Ready Public Charter Schools and its...

As LA Unified school board president Steve Zimmer pleads for more involvement with the public for the superintendent search, the board voted down yet another effort to give the community greater influence in the selection process. It was the latest example of how the district is urging the public to play a role in the...

A majority responding to the latest LA School Report poll said the biggest challenge facing the new LA Unified superintendent is the Broad Foundation’s charter expansion plan, which could drain enrollment. More than 50 percent of respondents chose it as No. 1. The second most popular answer expressed a bit of cynicism, as 18 percent chose: “Yikes,...

For the first time, LA Unified school officials can track former students as they are released from juvenile halls and detention camps to help reintegrate them into the public schools. In this first year of the program, the district has identified 1,067 students who are being returned to the school population, some of them as...

By Nicholas Melvoin In decrying the recently leaked memo outlining a plan to create more high-quality public charter schools in our city, LAUSD School Board President Steve Zimmer said: “This is not an all-kids plan or an all-kids strategy…it’s very explicitly a some-kids strategy, a strategy that some kids will have a better education at a publicly-funded school…[t]he conversation should be...

LA Unified board will consider outside superintendent search committee A group of civic leaders has pressed the school board repeatedly on the issue. Los Angeles Times, by Howard Blume LAUSD’s building program transforming neighborhoods An ambitious construction program by L.A.’s Unified School District has dramatically altered the look of several of the city’s neighborhoods in...