By Mareesa Nicosia FIVE POINTS, Calif.—It’s 7:50 on a hot, dry August morning when the buses rumble past a barren field—normally filled with broccoli this time of year—and creak to a stop in front of a flat-topped school, dust blooming up from under their wheels. Children spill out, the older ones eager to greet familiar...

As a heat wave engulfed the region yesterday, LA Unified officials fielded 346 calls to fix air conditioning units. By the end of today, they were expecting at least that many more. Tacked on to an existing backlog of calls for air conditioner repair since before school began, LA Unified has about 2,600 requests for...

* UPDATED This one is sure to spark some discussion around LA Unified water coolers tomorrow: Independent charter schools in the district scored almost even with traditional and affiliated charters on the new California Assessment of Student Progress and Performance (CAASPP) tests. The results of the new Common Core-aligned tests, which were released today, show that...

Three young boys who were brothers and students at LA Unified were found stabbed to death inside an SUV in south Los Angeles today. A man believed to be their father was taken to a hospital suffering from critical stab wounds, and police reported that a man was in custody on suspicion of committing the...

Three quarters of LA Unified students who took the new statewide Common Core-aligned tests for math and two-thirds of students who took the tests for English failed to meet state standards, according to data released today by the California Department of Education. The scores on the new California Assessment of Student Progress and Performance (CAASPP) reflect...

By Sandy Banks The hunt for the next Los Angeles Unified schools superintendent is on; the battle lines are being drawn. I hope the issue of charter schools doesn’t become a competent candidate’s Waterloo. On the battlefield the issue tidily divides opposing camps: Are you for public accountability or private control? But in real life,...

Teachers, too, will learn a lot from new tests The state is gradually rolling out the Online Reporting System, a web-based tool that will enable teachers and principals to easily analyze their students’ results. EdSource After a string of suicides, students in Palo Alto are demanding change In response to recent tragedies, the national media...

Ever since billionaire Eli Broad and a few other powerful figures in the school reform movement announced plans of a massive investment in new charter schools for LA Unified, the district’s teachers union has been aggressively mobilizing opposition to it. That response took an interesting turn yesterday when Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of United Teachers Los...