By Helena Bottemiller Evich As the Republican battle against Michelle Obama’s school lunch standards resumes in Congress later this month, some food giants are quietly backing away from their fight with the first lady. Many companies, such as Schwan’s, that once vigorously fought key elements of the initiative to trim sodium, fat and calories from...

An elementary school principal who was removed over the summer after a wave of parental protests took her case before the LAUSD School Board today in an effort to win reinstatement. Gail Greer was removed from the Mid-City’s Prescott School of Enriched Sciences Magnet Elementary School on July 27 by Superintendent Ramon Cortines after parents...

LA Unified has announced that Judy Burton has stepped down as chair of the Instructional Technology Initiative Taskforce, which is guiding the district’s tech objectives in the wake of the cancelled iPad program. Burton resigned as CEO and president of Alliance College-Ready Public Schools in January, the same month she was named to head up the...

The interview process starts today at the LA Unified school board meeting, with plans to hear from representatives of two headhunter firms in the search for the district’s next superintendent. Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates of Rosemont, Ill. and Leadership Associates of La Quinta, Calif. were picked from among five bidders by the board on Sunday. They were...

By The Editorial Board Kindergarten hasn’t been its old self for a long time. After decades of increasing focus on academics, it recently became more standardized as well; the curriculum for California’s 5-year-olds is now aligned with the Common Core academic standards. Kindergarten teachers are no longer preoccupied with keeping their squirmy charges from eating...

Ever since the FBI seized documents in December related to LA Unified’s controversial iPad program, there have been no public updates on the case, but now it appears that the LA Unified school board and its legal department see trouble coming. It is just a single line in the agenda for tomorrow’s closed board meeting,...

A group of LA Unified students joined local and national educators last week to describe academic challenges they face and to suggest ideas for what could help them. The four-hour discussion last Thursday evening kicked off a weekend of activities sponsored by UTLA in conjunction with the “White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African...

The LA Unified school board made limited progress yesterday in the search for a new superintendent. The members invited two headhunter firms to pitch their ideas on how to handle the search but said three other firms may also still be in the running. The two leading firms — Hazard, Young and Associates of Rosemont,...

By Dan Walters California’s public schools saw an enormous enrollment surge during the 1950s from the post-World War II baby boom. It overwhelmed many school districts’ capacities to build new facilities, and one response, enacted in 1957, was called “lease-leaseback.” The law authorized a district to lease a school site to a contractor for a...

Uncertain impact of California’s high school exit exam Gov. Brown last week signed legislation that exempted students from the graduating class of 2015 from having to take the test. EdSource Lawmakers consider retroactive diplomas for students who failed exit exam Between 2006 and 2014, nearly 249,000 students, or about 6 percent of test-takers, did not...