A new report finds that a parent-led tutoring effort in Oakland produced similar gains in reading for young students as instruction from classroom teachers — a nod that could fuel similar efforts in other districts.  “The more the children know you and trust you, the more they’re willing to engage in what you’re trying to teach them,”...

Math achievement tumbled for American 15-year-olds between 2018 and 2022, according to the latest results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an exam comparing academic performance in the U.S. against that of dozens of other countries. In a pleasant surprise, however, their reading and science skills appear to be undiminished over the last...

Edwin Markham Middle School in the Watts community opened one of LAUSD’s first parent centers last month, part of a larger plan to add over 300 centers in schools across the district.  The center offers services to help parents support children through school, along with  career workshops and financial stipends. As the district introduces more...

As schools continue to recover from the pandemic, there’s one troubling COVID symptom they can’t seem to shake: record-setting absenteeism. In the 2021-22 school year, more than one in four U.S. public school students missed at least 10% of school days. Before the pandemic, it was closer to one in seven, the Associated Press reported, relying...

Second-grade teacher Nelly Cristales says her LAUSD school has developed a unique way to combat chronic absenteeism — competition. At 32nd Street School near University Park in East Los Angeles, a big, bright trophy goes to the class with the least absences and latenesses — and Cristales’ students are eager to win. “My kids are...

About 2.9 million high school students took at least one Advanced Placement course in the 2020-21 school year, according to the latest federal data measuring access to educational opportunity. But Black and Latino students were significantly underrepresented in those college-level math and science courses. And schools in which at least 75% of students are Black...

College promise programs offering “free college” to local students are increasingly adding a new task to their core mission — connecting young people to internships and apprenticeships. The programs, in which students are promised free college tuition if they graduate high school, have long been considered a silver bullet against the soaring tuition and loan debt...

Los Angeles charter school operator Alfredo Rubalcava can’t sleep at night.  Like other educators in Los Angeles, the CEO of Magnolia Public Schools is awaiting the unveiling of a new policy limiting the use of nearly half the city’s school buildings by independently run charter schools. But with LAUSD superintendent Alberto Carvalho on the verge...

Artificial intelligence now has a daily presence in many teachers’ and students’ lives, with chatbots like ChatGPT, Khan Academy’s Khanmigo tutor and AI image generators like Ideogram.ai all freely available. But nearly a year after most of us came face-to-face with the first of these tools, a new survey suggests that few states are offering educators substantial guidance on how to...

From teacher to congressional candidate, Nick Melvoin has accomplished much in his years of public service. Now he is one of 18 candidates running in the March 4, 2024 primary for U.S. House of Representatives California District 30.  Melvoin started his career as an English teacher at Markham Middle School in Watts. Motivated to see...