LA School Report

By Kevin Mahnken What Serena Williams is to the Grand Slam, what the John Wooden UCLA basketball teams were to the NCAA tournament, and what Magic Johnson to the NBA finals — that is what Granada Hills Charter High School is to the rarified world of the United States Academic Decathlon: an iconic L.A. powerhouse...

LA Unified continues to try to get a parent center on every campus, and in a report Tuesday, administrators showed that 91 more centers are slated for opening next year. But 167 schools applied for a parent center, noted Rosalinda Lugo, the district’s Parent and Community Services administrator, and the district can’t approve them all...

By Seth Litt On Wednesday, May 17, Los Angeles families woke up to a new reality for education in the nation’s second-largest school district. Voters in two Los Angeles Unified school board districts voted resoundingly for change, electing two young progressive educators — both of them either current or former teachers — as our newest school board...

More Latinos than ever are going to college, but as a group they continue to struggle to get a college degree. Those who are getting their diplomas this spring have much to celebrate, especially as the number of Latinos graduating from college is only slowly increasing, rising just 7 percentage points in two decades. In...

*UPDATED More people turned in ballots for the two LA Unified school board seats in the May 16 runoff than for either of the city council elections that day or Amendment C, the citywide ballot issue on police discipline. In the final tally, released Friday by the LA City Clerk’s Office, 11.35 percent of the voters showed up...

Many point to record outside spending for the vote this month that brought a new pro-reform majority to the LA Unified school board. But what really made the difference is a groundswell of parent power as more than 2,500 parents were galvanized to usher in change. Hundreds of parents in the predominantly Latino east San Fernando...

More new teachers in LA Unified are certified by a national teacher accreditation program than any other district in the nation, and it costs the district $12.6 million annually in salary boosts. But, if they’re so good, those highly trained teachers need to be used better in the academically struggling school district and moved to...

By Ramon Altamirano I was already a freshman at Cal State Northridge before I realized that my schools had failed me. It was apparent, very quickly, that the prior 12 years of my education had not been on par with that of my classmates. Other students had come to their higher learning with the academic...

*UPDATED The teachers union in Los Angeles — one of the largest local teachers unions in the nation — suffered a huge loss in last week’s school board election, but observers say it will only cause union leadership to fight harder. Ultimately, that could mean United Teachers Los Angeles will bolster efforts to unionize charter...

Monday was supposed to be an easy day. State tests were over, the school year was winding down, and Taper Avenue Elementary School was heading for a long weekend. But as Principal Steven Skrumbis and his instructional director, Gina Ellis, finished their rounds touring the school just after lunch and headed back to the office, they...