LA School Report

Five more LA Unified high schools may divert their funding for teacher librarians this fall as principals decide to spend their budgets on other pressing needs, meaning 15 of the 84 high school libraries would not be fully staffed. The state’s Local Control Funding Formula allows more autonomy for district schools, and library staffing is among the discretionary items. But...

By Kevin Mahnken There are three middle schools in Palo Alto, each named after an important figure in local history: Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School honors the co-founder of Stanford University; David Starr Jordan Middle School is named after Stanford’s first president; and Terman Middle School memorializes the psychologist Lewis Terman and his son Frederick,...

*UPDATED A state audit released Thursday found that Alliance College-Ready Public Schools did not divert public funds intended for students on a nearly $1 million campaign to counter efforts by United Teachers Los Angeles to unionize its more than 600 teachers and counselors. The attempt to unionize the city’s largest charter management organization began more...

Great Public Schools Now will give $1.5 million in grants to LA Unified to expand enrollment at a magnet high school and a pilot high school, both in South Los Angeles, adding 1,000 new seats in three years, the nonprofit organization announced Thursday. The intent of the grants is to replicate high-performing LA Unified schools...

School board President Steve Zimmer said he has a lot of work left to do and plans to try to do it all in his next five-and-a-half-year term if reelected. It will be his last hurrah because Zimmer will be termed out and won’t be able to run for the board again. Zimmer said he...

Outgoing school board member Mónica Ratliff announced Wednesday she is endorsing Kelly Gonez to take over her Board District 6 seat in the northeast San Fernando Valley. “I greatly appreciate that Ms. Gonez seeks to be an ‘independent voice on the school board,’” Ratliff said in an email to LA School Report. She made her choice after reviewing...

The state released its graduation rates Tuesday, pushing LA Unified’s Class of 2016 rate up to 77 percent, a 2 percentage point increase from the district’s preliminary projection in August and its biggest jump in seven years. The difference comes from how students are counted, as the state has better tracking information. The California Department...

New research shows that years after having even one black teacher in elementary school, black students experience major benefits, from being less likely to drop out of high school to being more likely to aspire to college and take college entrance exams. The recent study comes as there has been increasing attention to diversifying the teaching force,...

For decades, stereotypical homeschoolers have been white Christian families seeking to mix their children’s education with moral values. But in recent years, the demographics of homeschool families and the reasons they are choosing to teach their kids at home have grown more diverse. These days, homeschool parents are more likely to cite a negative school...

Steve Zimmer, the LA Unified school board president who is in a heated re-election battle, has barely raised any money ahead of next month’s runoff and says he is too busy to campaign for the seat he’s held for eight years. Zimmer’s opponent, Nick Melvoin, has raised nearly 10 times as much as Zimmer since...