LA School Report

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...

We just published an interactive map that shows the results of school climate surveys taken by teachers and students at LA schools. The map makes it easy for parents for the first time to compare the climate in their child’s school to other schools in the same neighborhood and across LA. There’s data on 786...

She had long black hair down to her waist in 1968 when she started at Valley View Elementary School. Today, her hair is shorter, a bit grayer, but she’s still there and still teaching. On Wednesday, Vicki Nishimura was honored for her 50 years of service to the school in Hollywood, and a plaque depicts...

By David Tokofsky Now that the dust of the school board election has settled and the mailers are in the recycling bin, the tough job of setting policy for the nation’s second-largest school district lies ahead for the new and returning members of LAUSD’s Board of Education. It is always good to ground policy on...