By Jennifer Medina Her husband, Steven P. Jobs, famously helped reboot Apple with the “Think Different” advertising campaign. Now Laurene Powell Jobs is starting a $50 million project to rethink high school. With an advertising campaign that looks as if it came from Apple’s marketing department, the initiative is meant to create high schools with new approaches to...

LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines said yesterday the district is close to finalizing a $6 million-plus settlement deal with Apple and Pearson over the botched iPad program. In a statement this afternoon, the district confirmed that it was engaged in “cooperative discussions with our vendors” to resolve concerns about the the companies’ contribution to the district’s...

It’s just too hot out there. All LAUSD school teams planning outdoor sports competitions today have had to cancel or reschedule due to the heat. LA Unified sent out a memo yesterday, canceling activities held outside before 6 p.m. Almost immediately, a flyer was posted on the basketball courts at the Miguel Contreras Learning Center,...

LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines delivered a “jump start” to the newly-reformed Instructional Technology Initiative Task Force at its first meeting of the school year yesterday. He addressed such concerns as an already-aging supply of computers, a change in task force leadership and his renewed effort to get a device in the hands of every student in...

By Joshua Leibner What do the most recent California Common Core test scores mean? This is a question that deserves real attention, but the initial response is not encouraging. My last LAUSD principal told us four years that we are just “going to have to accept the testing pill” and get on with the program that would...

By Sarah Tully  Comparing California scores on tests aligned with the Common Core standards to those in other states isn’t a straightforward process. California students’ results are among the lowest when compared to the other eight states that have released Smarter Balanced assessment scores so far. But drawing conclusions may be difficult because California’s student...

Game-changing ethnic studies bill heads to California governor Gov. Brown has yet to say whether he’ll sign the bill creating a model ethnic studies curriculum that districts could use. Huffington Post LAUSD heat-related ban on sports activities disrupts football schedules Once temperatures exceed 99 degrees, the district urges all schools to either reschedule or cancel...

There wasn’t a lot of good news for LA Unified in the Smarter Balanced test results, which show that the district performed well under the statewide average. Among the poor news was the continuation of a drastic achievement gap between the district’s white students and its black and Latino students. However, if there is one piece...

* UPDATED In another testy exchange with LA Unified, a lawyer for teacher Rafe Esquith said district investigators are asking “loaded questions” of past and present students about the conduct of the teacher. The district called for a hearing this month with Esquith, who is still on payroll while in “teacher jail,” but the attorney turned down...

They’ve been talking about these new statewide tests in terms of setting a baseline for the years ahead. That’s fine as far it it goes. But here in LA Unified, we should think of the results in another way: As a redline. Statewide, more than half of students taking the test (56 percent) failed to meet...