The California Charter Schools Association last month filed a lawsuit against LA Unified over its controversial new policy barring charters from using classrooms in certain district school buildings.  It’s unclear if the CCSA will prevail in court, but the suit is already making an impact on the nation’s second-largest district.  LAUSD’s new colocation rules were...

Pursuing her passion for a career in medicine, California high schooler Ella Mayor found fulfillment working as a part-time pharmacy technician — tapping into skills she could never practice in school. Mayor, a 12th grade student at Santa Susana High School in Simi Valley, said she is often just going through the motions in her...

Los Angeles Unified is pushing ahead with district-wide lesson plans based on the science of reading even after state lawmakers rejected legislation requiring the curriculum. About half of the 434 elementary schools in the nation’s second-largest school system have already adopted lessons aligned to the phonics-based science of reading, according to Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. The...

When elementary school teacher Kimberly Papa gave birth to her daughter, Margot, a little over a year ago, she wasn’t expecting much in the way of paid maternity leave. She knew that the majority of Americans don’t have access to it and certainly not those in her state of Ohio. While she could take 12...

The turbulent rollout of a new federal financial aid application could mean thousands of low-income students miss out on college this fall. But one person feels especially perturbed by the botched implementation of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. Lamar Alexander — former governor of Tennessee, U.S. education secretary and Republican...

Blanca Paniagua was nervous.  The young adult was set to speak at a webinar about one of CalHope’s new experimental apps.  “I saw how many participants there (were)  and I was like, I’m about to use the app so it could calm me down,” said Paniagua.  But Paniagua had some strategies from the app —...

There are more than 180,000 unhoused people in California, and only half of them can be accommodated by the existing shelter system. That’s why Renee Wang, a rising senior at The Bishop’s School in San Diego, California, wanted to find a better solution. Her project, Rubix, inspired by the Rubik’s Cube and Lego, is a...

When Steve and Jenny Balbaugh’s daughter turned 5, they were hesitant to enroll her in the Fort Wayne, Indiana, schools. Ali was born with a rare brain defect that affects her learning and had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. “I didn’t want her to get lost,” Jenny said. But private options fell short. A...

As homeless student numbers rise in LA Unified schools, a 26-unit housing complex for unhoused families was opened last month.  It took five years for the project to be completed — a timeline that did not go unmentioned by representatives of the organizations involved.   “Once we know better, we need to do better,” said LAUSD...

In the annals of artificial intelligence, Feb. 16, 2011, was a watershed moment. That day, IBM’s Watson supercomputer finished off a three-game shellacking of Jeopardy! champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Trailing by over $30,000, Jennings, now the show’s host, wrote out his Final Jeopardy answer in mock resignation: “I, for one, welcome our computer...