Via Metro Trends Blog | by Reed Jordan Fifty million children will start school this week as historic changes are under way in the U.S. public school system. As of 2011, 48 percent of all public school students were “poor” and this year, students of color will account for the majority of public school students...

With last weekend’s 6.0 earthquake in Napa County as the latest reminder of the need for earthquake preparedness, LA Unified is progressing slowly in retrofitting school buildings deemed vulnerable. In accordance with a state law known as AB 300, the district in 2006 conducted a seismic evaluation and identified 667 buildings constructed before 1976 that required possible...

Among the non-iPad and MiSiS issues before the LA Unified board yesterday was approving the hiring of Ruth Pérez as the deputy superintendent of instruction. The vote was 6-0, with Monica Ratliff abstaining. Most recently superintendent of  Norwalk-La Mirada school district, Perez has also served as a teacher and administrator in Florida and as chief...

It’s long. It’s detailed. And it’s dry. But here it is, LA Unified board member Monica Ratliff’s report to her colleagues on the work of The Common Core Technology Project Ad Hoc Committee. She was chair. By now, most people know the iPad program didn’t go swimmingly, leading Superintendent John Deasy to suspend it this...

*UPDATED A new report by the California Charter Schools Association shows a growing gap between the overall school performance of traditional schools and charter schools in LA Unified. The report — Portrait of the Movement — says LA Unified charter schools, on average, produce stronger test results than traditional schools in the district. The data...

It might be the new school year, but it was a series of old problems awaiting the LA Unified school board yesterday as it met long into the night with a full complement of seven members for the first time in eight months. After the swearing in of newly-elected District 1 member George McKenna, a...

The LA Unified Board meeting reconvenes today with a full compliment of members. The board now includes a representative from District 1, George McKenna, who was sworn in earlier in the day. He is replacing the late Marguerite LaMotte. Among the items for discussion are a review of the district’s labor contracts, a handful of...

George McKenna, third from left, officially became the seventh member of the LA Unified school board today, representing District 1, after he was sworn in by Rev. Jesse Jackson, left. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, second from left, and Danny Bakewell, publisher of the LA Sentinel, far right, also participated in the brief ceremony, which preceded the...

Watch the swearing in of George Mckenna to the District 1 seat of the LA Unified Board of Education. Watch here.

*UPDATED LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy told members of the school board yesterday that he is halting the district’s contract with Apple, Inc., effectively ending his grand plan to put an iPad in the hands of every district student. Following the disclosure of emails that suggest he and aides had tailored the bid process to...