LA School Report

Maria Ruiz worried about her three sons’ education in Boyle Heights, a low-income Los Angeles neighborhood where she felt the public schools were dangerous and neglected. But when the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools took over leadership of her sons’ low-performing campuses, she witnessed a transformation — in her boys as well as their schools....

Joan Sullivan walked into a tough crowd at 20th Street Elementary School in South Los Angeles in May 2016. Three dozen teachers and staff in yellow spirit shirts stood at the back of the room, most of them with their arms crossed, while in the audience nearly 200 parents with their children sat divided, holding signs...

With a formal search now underway for Los Angeles Unified’s next superintendent, stakeholders have lots of ideas on the qualities our next district leader should have. In a new commentary series launching today, local and national education leaders share their thoughts on a fundamental question: What should leadership look like at the top? The district...

With declining enrollment, a looming fiscal crisis, and a persistent racial and socioeconomic achievement gap, LAUSD is at a critical juncture as it searches for a new superintendent to lead through turbulent times. Many of us have witnessed decades of “reforms” that have had no significant impact on closing the achievement gap or addressing the...

The leadership of our nation’s major school systems matters a lot in the education of millions of kids. Yet each transition sets off a deeply counterproductive scramble. It doesn’t need to be that way. The news that Michelle King is stepping aside as superintendent of Los Angeles Unified due to a serious illness is deeply...

On Sunday, Feb. 11, Parent Revolution’s co-founder Shirley Ford passed away. While Los Angeles lost a tireless champion for underserved children, she left behind a living legacy of parent leaders and allies ready to continue her work in this city and across the nation. As we reflect on the qualities needed in LAUSD’s next superintendent, we...

Nowhere in the Los Angeles Unified District are the feelings of parent frustration, anger, and confusion more palpable than in the district’s central parent committees. These are groups of parents elected by their peers in local districts to represent the parent voice and provide feedback to the superintendent and Board of Education. It is here...

*Updated Feb. 15 Despite parents’ pleas to deal now with a coming deficit that could require huge cuts, a narrow majority of LA Unified’s school board on Tuesday approved a new contract that commits the district to paying for its employees’ generous health benefits at current levels for the next three years. The contract passed 4-2, with...

Adam Anderson, a third-way candidate for California’s state superintendent of instruction, has pulled out of the race. Anderson, 36, was educated in California public schools through college. He spent six years in Chicago and directed strategy and policy at Chicago Public Schools before returning to California in 2014 to lead strategy and operations at EducationSuperHighway,...

Every week, we sit down with Los Angeles parents to talk about their students, their schools, and what questions or suggestions they have for their school district. (See our previous interviews.) For parents, finding a good school for their children can be exhausting, especially as they search for the right tools and resources to compare...