LA School Report

High academic expectations and an “alive” and engaged classroom with lots of student-teacher interaction are some of the hallmarks of Joshua Martinez’s East Los Angeles class, where he has taught fourth-grade for the last five years. Martínez has been named one of four winners of the 2017 Fishman Prize for his “superlative classroom practice” at...

By Chris Bertelli California State Assemblyman Tony Thurmond is running for California Superintendent of Public Instruction but it might be hard to tell why based on a couple of recent votes on one of the most important education issues facing the state. The East Bay Democrat sits on the Assembly Education Committee, which would seem...

June means it’s budget time for the Los Angeles Unified School District. The district published Superintendent Michelle King’s final $7.5 billion budget proposal for the 2017-18 school year on its website late last week, making it publicly available for the first time. It’s a breezy 262 pages.  The school board will hold a public hearing...

State education officials have solicited meetings all month to work out a plan to let the federal education department know how they will help low-achieving students. Some community education leaders said they think the state still has a long way to go. Two meetings will be held this week in Los Angeles, and two more will...

*UPDATED Ten students who helped design their own educational program made up the first graduating class of Hawthorne’s Da Vinci RISE High, a pilot created to help foster and homeless youth conclude their high school education. The students had the responsibility and opportunity to help design the pilot program during the 2016-17 school year. The...

It’s the last regular LA Unified school board meeting before two newcomers are sworn in next month, and it’s a full agenda that includes some pet project resolutions, new charter schools, and a look at the district budget. The school board going to hear details of the new budget, which will be voted on at a...

These two responses are to a commentary posted Wednesday by David Tokofsky: Response by Evelyn Aleman Macias “Is it realistic to expect that the kids who would have been dropouts in years past will all be getting Cs or better in college preparatory courses?” is the line that stood out for me when I read...

A new interactive map on how safe Los Angeles schools are shows a wide swath of red in predominantly Latino, poor and immigrant neighborhoods, indicating students and teachers report not feeling safe. But one neighborhood with those same demographics stands out for its lack of red. Boyle Heights/East LA is an oasis of green and yellow, meaning that students...

*UPDATED Protesters gathered at an East Los Angeles high school Thursday afternoon after students took to Twitter with #FreeClaudia over the detainment of an undocumented university student who was arrested in front of her home in Boyle Heights. On Friday morning, a San Diego judge ordered the release of 22-year-old Claudia Rueda on her own recognizance, but her...

As California rethinks school accountability under the Every Student Succeeds Act, policymakers often overlook information that goes to the heart of what might be the most fundamental question for any parent: Does my child feel safe? Data about the real inner workings of schools, from teacher morale to academic culture to student safety, are rarely...