LA School Report

It’s back to square one. After voting in the fall to start school closer to Labor Day against the superintendent’s recommendation, enough school board members changed their minds Tuesday night and reverted the calendar to this year’s schedule, citing the need to fight decreasing enrollment and the competition from charter schools. That means starting the school year again...

The latest fight over the constitutionality of charter schools in Washington state may not be resolved until 2018, meaning the parents, advocates and educators fighting to save the schools and the teachers union and other groups suing to close them could face a long year of legal wrangling. There have already been some skirmishes — rulings...

By Erica Valente I have always believed that education is the path forward for all families. A few years ago I joined other families at my children’s school, 24th Street Elementary, to lead a campaign for change. Many parents, like me, volunteered hundreds of hours to improve a school that was in the bottom 5 percent of...

As the numbers of Latino students continue to grow at LA Unified, the need for Latino teachers also increases. Some Los Angeles schools are using their own methods to close the gap between Latino students and teachers. Two of the innovators are PUC Schools, with its alumni teachers program, and UCLA Community School, a pilot school...

*UPDATED Palms Middle School Principal Derek Moriuchi jokes with fellow administrators that one must be “kind of special” to want to teach middle schoolers. “They do do weird things and their hormones are all over the place,” he said. “But we get that.” Palms Middle School, on the westside of Los Angeles, is among the...

When Principals Maria Ozaeta and Anita Maxon interviewed prospective teachers this summer for the Dr. Julian Nava Learning Academy, the one question they repeatedly asked themselves was: Does this teacher have a heart? The pilot school campus has had challenges in the last couple of years, teacher turnover being one. They hired 11 brand new...

(Click on the red dot on the map for the school name and its rankings.) *UPDATED LA Unified middle schools rank far behind their elementary and high school counterparts and trail middle schools throughout the state, an LA School Report analysis of statewide school ranking data from California Charter Schools Association has found. And in...

LA Unified officials say the district has bent over backward to give schools as much local control as possible over discretionary positions and funds. But has it backfired? Are schools filthier, counselors scarce and financial bookkeeping in disarray because principals can juggle staff resources and choose which positions to fill? That’s what school board members are now...

A Los Angeles charter school organization that sends 95 percent of its graduates to college wanted to make sure its students made it not just to but through college. So it developed a list of colleges that would give students the best chance at graduating. Alliance College-Ready Public Schools’ college ranking system identifies the top 150 colleges...

*UPDATED School board members gave a tentative but tepid thumbs up to a strategic plan for the LA Unified School District after more than four hours of discussion Tuesday, but they also called for more urgency. The biggest change since an August draft of the 2016-2019 Strategic Plan was a simplified singular goal: 100 percent graduation....