LA School Report

Delivering a promise of college access to their students and having high expectations led four schools authorized by LA Unified — two of them independent charter schools with more than 90 percent of their students Latino and low-income — to be selected as 2017 National Blue Ribbon Schools. The distinction, announced Thursday by the U.S...

Ever since Amazon announced it would open a second headquarters — a proposal that’s expected to generate up to 50,000 new jobs for the winning municipality — cities across the country have been rushing to show the online retail giant that their locale has the goods. Just about as quickly, journalists and data analysts have been trying to...

Just two years ago, 20th Street Elementary was considered such a failing school that the parents moved to take it over from LA Unified using a state law. But Wednesday’s release of state test scores shows the elementary school had the highest math gains of any traditional school in the district. “We have seen a...

*UPDATED LA Unified’s scores on state standardized tests continue to fall below the state average, even though its students posted slightly better gains, according to results released Wednesday. But English learners made no improvement. Their near-stagnant scores last year had caused deep consternation in the district, with one board member saying “the data is miserable.”...

*UPDATED California’s public school students performed about the same this year as they did last year on standardized tests, with LA Unified students showing slightly more improvement. But you’d need a magnifying glass to see the differences. California’s improvement in math was so minuscule that for the first time the results were released in decimal points....

More high school seniors are on track to graduate so far this year than in any of the past dozen years, according to an LA Unified report released last week. “We are seeing numbers higher than last year and the year before, and the expectations are increasing,” Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson said. “We are...

When the LA Unified school board said the Pledge of Allegiance Tuesday afternoon, at least three people in the audience of about two dozen took to their knees. Most prominent was Cecily Myart-Cruz. She is vice president of both the National Education Association and the local United Teachers Los Angeles. She was flanked by two other...

In a vote that fell along the reform and labor lines, Mónica García on Tuesday became the new president of the LA Unified school board. She named Nick Melvoin to the vice president’s position. Melvoin joined the board in July after defeating the former board president in May’s general election. She also confirmed that she...

A national survey shows that 1 in 4 students experienced bullying, and those who identify as something other than male or female are bullied at slightly higher rates. The YouthTruth Student Survey, released Tuesday by the San Francisco-based education nonprofit, found that more than 48,000 students — or 25 percent — surveyed in 34 states said...

Bilingual education is making a comeback in California, and one reason is research that proved its benefits, Latino education experts say. At a recent conference of Spanish-language journalists from across the country, panelists including a UCLA researcher laid out how far bilingual education has come over the last two decades. During a panel discussion on...