LA School Report

Betsy DeVos is, after weeks of public outcry, marathon Senate speeches and the narrowest and sharpest of partisan vote margins, the eleventh U.S. secretary of education. In a pro-forma and decidedly undramatic endnote, Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking “aye” to confirm DeVos, 51-50 at 12:30 p.m., marking the first time ever a vice...

LA School Report covers the 2017 LAUSD school board race: See all 13 candidate profiles Name: Mónica García Board district: 2 Age: 48 Job: Incumbent, school board District 2. She also has a paid position with the Probation Department, where she works a 4-10 work schedule. Married: No Children in LAUSD: No children LAUSD high school:...

Democratic senators spent the wee small hours of the morning holding the Senate floor in a marathon protest of Betsy DeVos’s nomination as education secretary. Their last-ditch effort is not expected to derail her confirmation vote around noon today but it kept alive what has become the fiercest opposition to a President Trump cabinet appointee. Several...

LA School Report covers the 2017 LAUSD school board race: See all 13 candidate profiles Name: Carl J. Petersen Board district: 2 Age: 49 Job: Manages shipping production for start-up company Arecont Vision that supplies security cameras. Married: Nicole Thiroux-Petersen Children in LAUSD: Three stepdaughters who are triplets: one at Granada Hills Charter High School, one...

Downey Unified School District looks much like others in the Los Angeles area, including LA Unified. It serves thousands of students, the majority of them Latino and low income. But its 96 percent graduation rate and other achievements have won it both recognition and the highest honor — replication. Downey has been designated as an exemplary school...

The four contenders for the District 4 seat on LA Unified’s school board met on Thursday night for the second time, in a forum at Paul Revere Middle School in Brentwood. There were a few zingers, some rather polite versions of sharp elbows and hoots of support from the 150 or so in the audience...

President Trump Tuesday evening nominated Judge Neil Gorsuch, currently serving on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals based in Colorado, to fill the seat on the Supreme Court left empty after Justice Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death nearly a year ago. Gorsuch was student body president at Georgetown Prep in suburban Washington, D.C., where his mother was...

As the first in her family to attend college and from a disadvantaged community where few students think it is possible to leave, Carolina Martínez Orozco wanted to prove that you can leave, and succeed.  She also wanted to come back and encourage others. “It was always my goal to go to college outside of...

Betsy DeVos’s nomination as education secretary moved forward after a bitter party-line vote by the Senate education committee and an unusually rancorous process that galvanized her opponents, frayed Senate relations and raised the spectre that some Republicans could defect when the vote reaches the full body. The intention of committee Democrats to block DeVos was...

LA Unified Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly, who is widely credited with steering the district through the Great Recession but has repeatedly warned of coming deficits, has resigned to take a similar position at the Santa Clara County Office of Education. Reilly was hired by LA Unified in 2007. On Monday, Superintendent Michelle King thanked Reilly...