LA School Report

* UPDATE Alexandra Mangia joined about three dozen other parents from Los Angeles to ride a bus overnight to speak in Sacramento about the state’s new way to rate schools. In her one-minute speech Wednesday before the state Board of Education, she talked about how shocked she was to discover how low the test scores...

Americans woke Wednesday to morning news broadcasts reporting school closures across the country, prompted by female teachers who took the day off to celebrate International Women’s Day. But many more educators made it to class, using the occasion to teach valuable lessons to their students. The classroom conversations coalesced around celebrating International Women’s Day, as...

Allison Holdorff Polhill, who fell short of making the runoff by about 10,000 votes, said Wednesday the biggest challenges she faced in her campaign were misrepresentations about charter schools and the attempts that were made to align her with Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. “I am woefully disappointed in Steve Zimmer’s...

As the ed tech industry continues to expand, breaking into the game means facing stiffer competition from companies keen on occupying the same space. But as teaching, student learning, and the delivery of educational content continue to evolve, there has never been a greater opportunity to make a difference in the lives of the students....

*UPDATED LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer will face Nick Melvoin in the runoff in May, while incumbent Mónica García easily won re-election outright on Tuesday. In the race for the open seat in the San Fernando Valley, Kelly Gonez leads Imelda Padilla going into the runoff. The District 4 contest will continue to be...

Voting is underway today for three seats on the LA Unified school board. By late afternoon, a random sample of voter turnout showed less than 8 percent of eligible voters had cast ballots countywide, according to the county Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan. Polls close at 8 p.m. At 4PM our random hourly sampling of voter turnout...

More than 100 parents, educators, and students on Monday rallied and chanted outside the Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in downtown Los Angeles to protest the arrest of a father who was taken from his family outside his daughter’s school. “We’re better than Trump, we deserve better than this, we are not...

Judging by how much is being spent, Los Angeles is about to hold the most important school board election in American history. As of Monday, candidates and their backers have poured $6.4 million into races for three seats, with most of that — about $5.4 million — coming from labor groups and deep-pocketed charter school...

The Fair Political Practices Commission will investigate spending by United Teachers Los Angeles on a public relations campaign supporting LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer, who is running for reelection. The chief of the FPPC’s Enforcement Division notified Keith Dell’Aquila, who filed a complaint, Thursday that it will investigate the complaint, according to a...

A coalition of community activist groups concerned with education issued a report to show how California can create a simple rating for schools that all can understand. A busload of three dozen families from Los Angeles will attend a state Board of Education meeting in Sacramento on Wednesday to urge the state to keep it...