LA School Report

Los Angeles Unified has revised its leading effort to boost academic outcomes for Black students after conservative Virginia-based activists filed a civil rights complaint, charging the program uses race as a criteria for admission. The district’s $120 million Black Student Achievement Plan had a clear goal: lifting the academic performance of Black students, who trail...

Los Angeles Unified is seeking voters’ approval for a $9 billion bond measure to repair and upgrade its aging school buildings.   The bond, which Californians will vote on Tuesday as Measure US, would be LAUSD’s largest ever and paid for with property tax increases. It requires a 55% majority in order to pass.  LAUSD Board...

For all the campaign arguments about immigration and the United States border, you’d think that we were embarking upon a new situation, something coming, an arriving novelty barely visible over the horizon. And yet, as far as schools are concerned, this is a past tense debate. The U.S.’s demographic reality is already shifting in remarkable...

Julie Payne is conflicted about her 16-year-old daughter’s social media use.  Unlike her daughter, Payne’s generation could leave their school issues on campus.  “Before social media, you had a chance to be alone and quiet,” said Payne, whose daughter is a student at Palisades Charter High School. “Now I think it’s harder to tune out...

California has a literacy problem.  In 2022, Capitol Weekly reported California had the lowest literacy rate of any state in the nation. In 2023, just 43% of California’s third graders were reading at grade level.  Literacy experts, teachers, and lawmakers all say the issue is dire, but they haven’t been able to agree on a...

The Los Angeles Unified School District showed improvement on state test scores released this month, but most students are still not hitting state proficiency standards.  Like other school systems across the country, LA Unified saw student achievement plummet during COVID-19. LAUSD scores have risen some since then, with underperforming student groups making particularly big gains.    ...

This story was originally published at CalMatters In her fifth grade class in a Los Angeles school, on a day when outdoor temperatures reached 116 degrees, the heat gave Lilian Chin a headache. The air conditioner in her classroom was broken. Her fingers felt numb and she vomited in class, according to her mother. The nurse...

A new report has found one in three LAUSD Black and Latino teachers are considering leaving their jobs — and the district must do a better job retaining these educators.  A study by GPSN found 71% of the Black and Latino Generation Z teachers intend to leave the classroom in the next one to two...

LAUSD teacher and charter school booster Dan Chang is running to unseat incumbent Scott Schmerelson in LA Unified’s Board District 3, covering the West San Fernando Valley and Studio City.  Chang, who is endorsed by a statewide charter school group, is a math teacher at James Madison Middle School in North Hollywood, who routinely calls...

Former LAUSD teacher and principal Scott Schmerelson is running to keep his seat in LA Unified’s Board District 3, covering the West San Fernando Valley and Studio City.  Schmerelson, who is endorsed by the teachers union, is running for his third consecutive four-year term against upstart Dan Chang, a math teacher with a fondness for...